Last week, HipHopDX joined Wiz Khalifa in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during his promotional run for March 29th’s major label debut, Rolling Papers. Speaking in Wired 96.5 FM’s studio lounge, Wiz recalled last year’s mixtape, Kush & Orange Juice, and how it set the stage for a gold single, and the success he’s enjoying in 2011. “It was a total set-up for [the success I’m having now]. Kush & Orange Juice, I had done maybe six or seven projects, maybe, before I had done Kush & Orange Juice. That was the biggest one for me,” Wiz admitted of the free project released on April 14, 2010. “That’s the one that [gave] me the most new fans. My original fans, that’s what made them to most happy. It was just a really, really good point for music in general, for a young artist to come with something that creative and that new.”
Looking at a career over five years in the making, Wiz noted, “I think for my career, Kush & Orange Juice was definitely a big thing, but everything [that happened to that point was valuable too]. Twitter helped, and the Internet…not even the tape, but the hype and the buzz around it, it kind of grew bigger than itself.”
Also in the video conversation, posted below, Wiz was asked to set the record straight on his gold single, “Black and Yellow”. As indicated in the video, the song began as a song about Wiz’s signature Dodge Challenger Hemi RT before becoming a Pittsburgh Steelers anthem in time for the Super Bowl. “[Black and Yellow] was about the car,” Wiz said smiling, with assertion. “And my jewelry. ‘That’s how I put it down, from my whip to my diamonds.’ ‘Black stripe, yellow paint / Them niggas scared of it, but them hoes ain’t.’ That’s the Chally, when I pull that thing out. ‘Hit the pedal once, make the floor shake.’ It’s about the car.”
Although the song is about the car, Wiz alluded to the fact that the city inspired him to purchase that piece of American muscle. “It’s about [civic] pride [too]. I’m from Pittsburgh, that’s what made me get a black and yellow Challenger. I could’ve got the old school orange; I could’ve painted it any color. But I got it stock black and yellow. I had [the dealer] look for that car. And they got it for me.”
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Rolling Papers is in stores March 29 on Rostrum/Atlantic Records.
Video by Zac “Red Hands” Shull.