God Don't Make Mistakes

To call Conway the Machine’s raps gritty is akin to calling summer in Arizona hot. Take this passage from “Piano Love,” off God Don’t Make Mistakes: “We don't play fair, drive-bys right in front of the daycare/We spray hairpin triggers, that FN on the waist here/Yeah, garbage bags wrapped around the Ks here/Told you it's spooky, my n***a, it's Camp Crystal Lake here.” He’s long had a way with words, but in 2022, with well over 20 projects to his name, the Buffalo-hailing MC is opening up in a way hasn’t before.

Too many lines on God Don’t Make Mistakes were likely painful to record. “Not too long after my cousin hung his self/I never told nobody, but I lost a son myself/Imagine bein' in the hospital, holdin' your dead baby/And he look just like you, you tryna keep from goin' crazy,” he raps on “Stressed.” “You don't know the feeling of never seein' your kid again/And it's a Russell Wilson-type n***a raisin' your lil' man/Real shit, I know the feeling, ain't seen my son in a minute/BM don't answer for me, so fuck her, I'm in my feelings,” he says on “Tear Gas.” A single like the Daringer- and Kill-produced “John Woo Flick,” with its claims of Conway having “enough shooters on my team to embarrass the Pistons” and a “door on my bedroom thick as a vault,” likely delivered plenty of new ears when it was released in advance of the album. But if it succeeded in bringing listeners all the way through God Don’t Make Mistakes, they’ll be leaving knowing as much about the Machine’s life—if not more—as those who’ve heard everything before it.