We’ve written about two pro wrestling-loving music artists, Griselda’s Westside Gunn and The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, several times over the years here at Cageside Seats.
If you like hip-hop or indie rock, you probably didn’t need us to tell you about either - but they’re good. You should check them out, especially Mountain Goats’ Beat The Champ and Westside Gunn’s The Fourth Rope. Thank us later.
As the headline probably clued you in on, it’s a good day. Both men recently did wrestling-related things.
Westside’s is the more substantial. The freakishly prolific rapper dropped 20 new tracks on the B Side of his recent album, Hitler Wears Hermes 8. Perhaps inspired by his trip to Queens to see AEW’s Grand Slam show on Wednesday night, three of them boast wrestling titles: The quick instrumental “Brodie Lee”, the rambling seven minute “Survivor Series 95”, and a gritty little number appropriately called “Eddie Kingston”:
While chatting to AEW’s Mad King about his Lights Out match with Jon Moxley against Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer on Rampage tonight, TSN’s Mike Beauvais asked Eddie about the song:
“It’s a trip, but it’s also an honour because Griselda and Westside Gunn, they do hip-hop I like. There’s a lot of hip-hop out there right now that I do not like and do not understand. So, it’s definitely flattering and it’s humbling for them to even consider, let alone put my name on a record. When I saw it, I was just blown away. I’ve been trying to meet Westside. I’ve been trying to get [Gunn’s fellow Buffalo natives] Butcher and Blade to bring him backstage so we can chill.”
Darnielle’s contribution to our good day isn’t a substantial (but once you write a song on request for Sasha Banks, it’s hard to top that). But it does involve Sami Zayn. And it just might be the most lo-fi promo in wrestling history, for Zayn’s ongoing beef with Rey Mysterio:
@reymysterio a message for Rey Mysterio pic.twitter.com/sEDZiGvoJ0
— The Mountain Goats (@mountain_goats) September 24, 2021
What a world. I love it.