What Conway The Machine learned from being around Jay-Z and Diddy
For the last decade, Conway The Machine has been releasing some of the best music in hip-hop. Alongside his Griselda affiliates Westside Gunn and Benny The Butcher, the Buffalo rapper has helped change the landscape of underground rap. Along the way, he’s had the luxury of being around some of the veteran artists, including Jay-Z and Diddy.
Conway is now four solo albums deep into his career, including God Don’t Make Mistakes, which was released on Eminem’s Shady Records in 2022. He’s also released a bunch of stellar mixtapes like Everybody Is F.O.O.D. and La Maquina, as well as a couple of projects with The Alchemist.
The rapper credits therapy for much of his personal growth, but he also notes Jay-Z and Diddy’s influence on him. Conway is on texting terms with Hov and often asks him for advice about navigating the industry. The same goes for Diddy, having visited his house and witnessed him from a working perspective.
“Jay-Z helped me a lot,” he told Rolling Stone. “He probably don’t even know just like, you know, I text him all the time asking questions about stuff, picking his brain about his own stuff. Just trying to learn, see what he did, how he did it. Watching Puffy, being at Puffy, being at Diddy’s house showed me a lot of stuff too. Just soaking up things, being a fly on the wall, just quiet in a room and just listening and watching.”
Conway has spoken about his friendship with Jay on several occasions. During an appearance on The Breakfast Club, he said, “This is probably the one guy, only guy who I felt like genuinely cared about me and my well-being. He asks about how I’m doing and family stuff, shit like that. It’s just regular shit. I kind of respect that and like that a little more.”
The pair collaborated in 2021 on ‘King Kong Riddim’, a song that appeared on the Harder They Fall soundtrack. Also featuring Jadakiss and British rapper BackRoad Gee, the song featured verses from both Jay and Conway. It’s their only collaboration, with Conway refusing to bother him when it comes to working together.
“I ain’t really trippin’ off the ‘Oh man, it’s Jay-Z,’” he said. “That’s probably why we ain’t did a lot of music together and stuff because I don’t hit him up about stuff like that. We hang out. I might not even get a picture. You won’t even know that we hung out. I think he like that about me too.”
Despite Conway and Diddy’s good relationship, producer Hitmaka once accused the Bad Boy founder of blocking a sample request for Conway. “Puff will do that, though,” he said on Shade 45. “The Conway situation, I ended sampling a Diddy song and he wouldn’t clear the record for us. He wouldn’t clear the record for nobody except his son. That’s why Christian Combs got that record too.” His song ‘Can’t You Be’ sampled Total and Biggie Smalls’ classic ‘Can’t You See’.