I have taken the last week to listen to Westside Gunn’s Heels Have Eyes, and let’s just say it isn’t just another Griselda drop, It is a meditation on performance, spectacle, and the blurred lines between authenticity and artifice in rap music. At just five tracks and ten minutes, the EP is brief, but it punches above its weight, delivering a conceptually rich and stylistically consistent project that fuses hip hop, wrestling, and horror tropes into a singular experience. What Heels Have Eyes can show us, ultimately, is how compact projects can still function as fully realized statements. It offers a look at how persona isn’t just a mask rappers wear, it is the medium itself.

To appreciate this EP, you have to start with the title. Heels Have Eyes is a wordplay laced reference to the cult horror film The Hills Have Eyes, but Gunn replaces “hills” with “heels” a wrestling term for villains (thank you Janelle, Emily, and Patty for explaining this to me). If you are familiar with Westside Gunn, this mashup is no surprise. He’s long been a lover of wrestling, and his 4th Rope promotion proves it is more than just a fandom, it is an extension of his artistic vision. In wrestling, the “heel” is the character you love to hate. They are loud, brash, unapologetically confident. They cheat, boast, flex. And, maybe most importantly, they perform a role that is never meant to feel totally real, but is always rooted in emotional truth. Sound familiar? Westside Gunn has long positioned himself as a heel figure in hip hop. On this EP, that persona is sharpened into a dramatic, cartoonish, yet somehow believable character study.

The link between rap and wrestling isn’t new. Both forms value larger than life characters. Both are built on verbal combat, elaborate entrances, personal myth making, and performative aggression. Gunn leans into that overlap like few others. Tracks like “Goro” and “Davey Boy Smith” are full of references not just to wrestling legends but to a philosophy of performance that prioritizes character building over technical complexity. Gunn is an amazing rapper, but he is not trying to be the best lyricist in the room he is trying to be the most memorable. The distinction matters. It is why the beat doesn’t always need a hook. Why the production often feels cinematic and sparse. It is about creating space for the persona to breath. The project even plays out like a wrestling match. An opening spectacle (Fishscale Friday), narrative development (Einstein Kitchen), heel flexes and dominance (Goro & Davey Boy Smith), and a thematic send off (Egypt) where the glamor and grime coalesce into something mythic.

With Heels Have Eyes, Gunn reminds us that shorter projects can still tell complete stories. In an era where albums are bloated for streams or slashed into disposable singles, the EP becomes a powerful tool for thematic focus. This EP form gives Gunn freedom. No filler, no forced cohesion, just a tightly wound vision. The beats provided by Denny LaFlare and others are textured but minimal, giving Gunn space to spit without competition. He does not waste time trying to prove anything. He is just building his world. You hear it in the details. The adlibs, the fly fashion references, the throwaway lines that sound like a mob boss mid conversation. Yes, Gunn is rapping but he is also acting. Every bar is a line in a script we have been watching unfold since FlyGod.

Much like the horror films the EP title evokes, Gunn’s music often walks the line between glamor and grotesque. There is blood on the marble floors, couture stitched with menace. It is a world where someone can wear a vintage Coogi while stepping over a crime scene and it feels entirely logical. This is where Gunn’s style shines. He isn’t telling stories linearly he is evoking moods. Scenes. Sometimes they’re violent, sometimes glamorous, sometimes funny. It is a kind of musical montage where emotion and aesthetics matter more than chronology. The horror reference in the EP’s title also does does more than just add an eerie vibe. Like a horror director, Gunn understands that tension is everything. The fear doesn’t always need to show its face, it just needs to be hinted at, lurking behind the designer curtains. Heels Have Eyes is offsetting without being supernatural, dramatic without being corny. It keeps you listening because you are never sure what might happen next.

It is worth noting that Gunn dropped this EP independently, through his own label, Fourth Rope. No big marketing rollout, no months of teaser posts just a direct to fans statement that reaffirms his control over his brand. This too is part of the performance. Gunn is selling luxury, but it is a DIY luxury. Not corporate gloss, but curated chaos. It is in the details, the Million Dollar Belt on the cover, the surprise drop date, the limited vinyl pressings. He is not just dropping some music, he is building mythologies. You don’t just listen to Westside Gunn, you subscribe to his universe.

So what can Heels Have Eyes show us? That an EP can be as dense and rewarding as a full album. That performance in rap isn’t about faking it is about crafting truth from fiction. That the best artists, like the best heels, understand how to draw us in not just with what they say, but how they say it. That world building is an artform. The looks, violence, and style can coexist without collapsing under their own weight. And maybe most of all, it shows us that Gunn is still finding new ways to evolve within his own mythology, all while making it look easy. Heels watch everything. So do we.