Review Summary: Atlantic is whittling away any semblance of credibility with these cookie cutter attempts at create-a-rapstar.
Honestly, you all
know Wiz Khalifa. He's that guy... the one that shows you a picture of a topless recent conquest on his iphone, fixates on crude methods of debauchery, and is so arrogant his name means "wisdom" in Arabic. He smokes illicit substances found within
Rolling Papers (apparently
Papers alone would be a bit too confusing for Atlantic's customer base). He did that terrible song "Black and Yellow", hopefully to the chagrin of terrible-towel wielders with standards. Most relevant to this review, Wiz Khalifa is another talentless douche on the payroll of equally talentless and douchey label Atlantic. And unfortunately, we'll probably hear these idiotic, pre-packaged jingles for the next year in poorly DJ'd clubs, top 40s pop stations, and Asher Roth's next kegger.
If, like Odd Future's Tyler the Creator, you didn't already want to "crash that f
ucking airplane that that ****** n**** BoB was in" after Atlantic's 2010 abortion of an album in
The Adventures of Bobby Ray, then last month's
Lasers surely pushed you over the edge. If so, don't even bother with
Rolling Papers as it is more of the same: overproduced, generic disney channel beats by names no one knows, derivative choruses and melodies that obviously sound manufactured by a tie-wielding Atlantic executive, and lyricism that fails at even being anthemic for parties. Seriously, who in the f
uck is Benny Blanco? Noel Fisher? Bei Major? Wikipedia reveals them to be basically nobodies that made their own wikipedia entries. Even veteran top-40s production team StarGate drops constant duds throughout - "Black and Yellow", "Roll Up", "Wake Up" (looks like the direction Up is a recurring theme in their compositions), and "Cameras" brings the suck-fest full circle. Lyrically, Wiz is the same as ever - partying, chicks, being awesome, etc - at least his content is consistent with his credo. But as his nemesis Ghostface (no, not the real one) claims, he has "a bullsh
it ass rhyme book when it come down to it nahmean". Ghost's analysis rings true here, as Khalifa's "whole style is straight baby thighs son".
Atlantic is whittling away at any semblance of credibility with these cookie cutter attempts at create-a-rapstar. If music has no artistic merit or essence, what is the point?
