Westside Gunn Makes His Mass Appeal Move With “HEELMATIC”

Westside Gunn is taking his next album to Mass Appeal.

HEELMATIC is due November 13 through the label and Griselda Records, with 16 tracks on the way.

The October 22 announcement came with the formal release of “ZILLA,” a track produced by longtime collaborator Denny LaFlare. Gunn’s team called it his first release with Mass Appeal.

The song’s video isn’t new. It premiered on Instagram on August 26, according to Gunn’s team. “ZILLA” now leads the label rollout ahead of the full album next month.

Gunn has kept making records since he talked about quitting in 2022.

HEELMATIC” follows last year’s HEELS HAVE EYES trilogy, an EP and two albums.

He explained what kept him going in an Interview magazine conversation published on October 19, 2023:

“Last year I wanted to hang it up. I was telling people I’m going to retire because I was fed up with the game.”

But he didn’t want to leave before fans knew his story. He said he had held back parts of himself to please his underground audience.

As he made music in 2023, he wanted to let fans hear more of who he was before he walked away.

The work with LaFlare also builds on a bond Gunn described years ago. He told The FADER in 2022 that he saw LaFlare and fellow producer Conductor Williams as family. He wanted them to spend time with him and get to know him, not just send beats.

His work wasn’t limited to his own records. He also shaped projects for rappers Armani Caesar and Rome Streetz:

“I pick the beats. I name the songs. I put them in order. I put the skits on it. I do the cover.”

For his own music, he said he could have the beats mapped out before he wrote his rhymes. Short bursts of recording, rather than constant trips to the studio, could yield more than one project in a year.

Next comes “Heel The World Tour 2: Still Healing!” across Europe and the United Kingdom in early 2027, starting January 30 in Brussels and running through February.