Before releasing this mixtape, Wiz Khalifa sent something of an apology letter to his fans. "When I made Kush and Orange Juice, I listened to it and knew I had created a genre that would change music," he wrote. "The mistake I made on Rolling Papers was thinking it was time to move on from that genre and not knowing that it had impacted people so much…creatively [it] wasn't my best work."
The gist was that Khalifa had gone too far into pop-rap with his major label debut and sacrificed the kicked-back stoner vibe that first got him wide attention. Concurrent with this were other artists-- from psychedelic producers like Spaceghostpurpp to au courant rap crews like A$AP and Main Attraktionz, basically the whole "cloud rap" or "trillwave" movement, whatever you want to call it-- who had since ran with a similar style. Taylor Allderdice, named for Khalifa's high school, is the rapper attempting to reclaim what he sees as his.
There are a few logical flaws in this argument. For one, while Kush and Orange Juice did crystallize the Taylor Gang aesthetic and help trailblaze the mixtape-to-commercial-success model for others, Khalifa was hardly the first guy to leisurely rap about weed. The list of cannabis-obsessed MCs is long and you don't have to look far to find a Wiz precursor. (See: Devin the Dude.) Also, Rolling Papers was actually pretty good. Yes, the record did nosedive into B.o.B.-esque cheese in the second half, but the front end contained some of Wiz's strongest material-- "The Race", "Hopes and Dreams", "On My Level".
To some degree, it's disappointing to see Khalifa shrugging off the strides he made on Rolling Papers and choosing regression over creative advancement. Taylor Allderdice is basically Kush and Orange Juice 2. The flip side is that there's still gas left in this tank, in part because the guy still loves weed and is still good at rapping about it. Marijuana is his muse, his raison d’être. Like Curren$y, Khalifa rarely leaves his comfort zone, but can create variety within self-imposed limits. Over humid tracks by various producers (in-house Taylor Gang beatmaker Sledgren oversees, the aforementioned Spaceghostpurrp contributes a beat), he weaves raspy bars and singsong choruses into pleasant, low-stakes party jams.
Obviously life has changed a lot for Khalifa in the two years since Kush and Orange Juice was released. He's a legitimate star now with a tabloid-fodder fiancee in Amber Rose and presumably lots more money. Weirdly there's not much acknowledgment of these seemingly big transitions. Every now and again, he lets go of a ruminative line ("Still rollin' weed on my XXL, only difference is that's me on the cover" or "Room full of expensive bags, still all the shit on the floor/ But that's just how you live when your wife's a model"), but mostly he seems determined to prove he's the Same Old Dude. If the album has a thesis statement, it's this couplet from "Never Been": "In my jacuzzi, roll another doobie/ See what's newest on Netflix, order another movie."
Where he does get personal is during a recorded interview with MTV News correspondent Rob Markman that's broken up and threaded throughout the album. It's annoying for several reasons. Almost every song ends with a clip of the two guys talking, thus breaking up any groove you may establish. Two, Khalifa actually burps at least twice during these segments. (I realize this mixtape comes at no cost to the listener, but this is pushing it even for free shit.) Third and most important, it seems remarkably lazy for an artist to rely on a conversation with a random guy to express the themes, ideas, and frustrations he wants to get across. That's what the songs are supposed to be for.
It feels like this is the central problem with Khalifa right now. He seems either unwilling or incapable to share the personal details, the other aspects of his persona that would give him extra dimension as a rapper. It's not a dealbreaker on this particular tape because a) it doesn’t carry the weight of a major release and b) these songs for the most part sound good, but it should be cause for concern for his fans going forward. Songs about pot are fine, they have their place, but he's reached the level of popularity that it's reasonable to expect something more.
