Westside Gunn's Art Basel Diary

Riding the wave of his latest record, AND THEN YOU PRAY FOR ME, rapper and nascent tastemaker, Westside Gunn, found himself on the shores of Miami Beach for Art Basel. The world’s most talked about art fair and cultural nexus was a natural destination for the Buffalo-born rapper. Fresh off the heels of the CFDA awards, where he was a guest of star-designer KidSuper, Westside Gunn used his time at Art Basel to spread his wings into the world of fine art.

The in-demand rapper had a packed schedule. In between hobnobbing at the Adidas HighArt dinner, reconnecting with Travis Scott at the fair’s opening night (just a few months after his standout guest spot on Scott’s Utopia), attending a colorful night of Sukeban Wrestling (the world’s premier female Japanese wrestling group), Westside Gunn still made time to add some art to his collection. It made sense that collecting was the top priority for one of Hip Hop’s most passionate art enthusiasts. As he told Genius in a recent sit-down interview, “It doesn’t matter to me about being the illest MC of all time...I want to be known as the illest curator of all time.” Where else better to be then than Art Basel, among the world’s most esteemed artists and curatorial minds?

Westside Gunn brought PAPER along for his breezy trip through Basel, showing us some of his standout moments from his jaunt through the art world’s biggest week.