That Wiz Khalifa had one of the biggest rap singles of 2011 with a song called “Roll Up” that was one of the cutest love rap songs instead of an ode to weed reads like a parody rap headline. Produced by Stargate, those quality Swedes who produced Wiz Khalifa’s biggest hit “Black and Yellow” & Rihanna’s great “Only Girl (In the World)”, might account for the fact that the sun-soaked music video and the song would have not sounded out of place on the Disney channel, which instead of being a reason for derision by rappers and rap fan alike, the song should have received more praise for being one of the best rap singles of the year.
Last year, there had to be some irony lost on people who dismissed Wiz Khalifa major label debut, Rolling Papers, declaring that he sold out instead of sticking with the type of music he had been previously making (I had my problem with the album, but looking back I protested a bit too much against it). Wiz Khalifa for the last few years has primarily only made love songs exclusively about girls and weed; this could be a description of plenty of lesser and better rappers working exclusively in this lane. But by reducing the number of ideas he could be working with, conflict the primary motivation force for so many rappers and for that matter most artists is lost on Wiz Khalifa. Pain or the struggles of life are not topics that ever enter the music of Wiz Khalifa, because why would he want to worry about such bummer things when he has pounds of weed to keep him giddy.
I am sure Wiz Khalifa’s life entails more than smoking weed and having sex, but whenever he mentions girls in his songs all they ever want to do is smoke weed and have sex with him. The opening song, “Memorized”, from his 2010 breakthrough mixtape Kush and Orange Juice during the chorus goes “These bitches stay memorized, as they recognize I keep it so G.” I am sure this could be describing some girls, but these “bitches” sound an awful like Wiz, as they want to admire his taste and lifestyle, which is essentially the only thing he is selling as a rapper. But, the choice of the word “bitch” seems strange for a dude, who is not describing people he dislikes or hates, because they are essentially him.
An influence of Snoop Dogg, Max B, or just youth probably accounts for the constant references of women as bitches, but it is more annoying than most cases to hear from Wiz Khalifa, who makes some of the poppiest radio friendly rap music right now. On “Racks (Remix)” he even says to look at this socks, the blonde streak across his hair, and even raps “naps on naps on naps”. When he says “probably some girls that want to fuck a young nigga”, it doesn’t remove the Nickelodeon quality of saying to stare at the gold streak in his black hair. He is bragging that he is doing something different (and easily mocked for it at that), and proud of enough of it to call it out in a song, which is different than the usually rap put down—which Khalifa himself does engage in. It is pretty easy to relate to a guy who brags about the number of naps he takes than the number of girls he is having sex with then ducking afterwards.
Most rappers use their pain and struggle through their life to motivate their music, whether if it the usual hood-to-mansion story that most rappers run in or even if it is Childish Gambino talking about racial stereotyping affecting his life, but Wiz Khalifa doesn’t really operate in this tradition. There is no pain, strife, or conflict in his music, which makes it far more interesting than an average weed rapper should be. But, this kind of makes sense for this Rap Romantic, who has no need for the street conflict that most rappers never leave and while some might rush to mock Wiz for being “soft” or “weak”, the truth is that adding a pistol and group of a couple dozen hanger-ons doesn’t improve a rapper’s music and it certainly wouldn’t help Wiz Khalifa, who is fine flying planes and drawing his name in the sand with his favorite girl.
