"Yeah nigga". Those are the first two words that came to mind after I gave Wiz' first post-Rolling Papers project a full listen. At this point last year, when he was gearing to drop his debut album on Atlantic I wondered what would become of the Taylor Gang general's career. Once I heard "Roll Up", I questioned the authenticity of the diplomas of every Atlantic Records employee, only for it to turn into a hit & make Wiz not only a new school rap standout but a crossover pop star. Maybe that's what Wiz wanted. Shit, he's a fuckin' rock star. Jimmy Hendrix meets Snoop Dogg meets Juicy J. Listen, if I grossed 11 million in my rookie year on a major label, I'll grab a guitar & sing Rolling In The Motherfucking Deep with Adele's suicidal ass all day fuck this rap shit, bitch is gettin' paper.

I digress though. I always remind anyone I speak to about music, whether you rap, sing or beatbox, the part of your career that people'll scrutinize most isn't your worst project, its the music immediately following that. Now its clearly way too early to call Rolling Papers Khalifa's worst project, it was his debut album. Was it what everyone expected? No, but I've heard worse. Not to mention this album came with some gems (Star Of The Show, The Race, Rooftops, Black & Yellow), and there were flashes of Kush & OJ Wiz Khalifa, the Wiz Khalifa that helped draw a new line in the sand where mixtapes were concerned. So where did he go wrong? In a letter he penned to his fans about a month ago he all but pleaded with them to continue supporting him, for if he had mis-led them in any way with his debut album, he'd right the ship with his next mixtape. I was actually surprised to read this, I didn't expect him to ever admit Rolling Papers was a commercial success (almost 800,000 copies sold in the United States to date), but a letdown to his fans, which was refreshing to see.

So how exactly did Wiz right the ship? Because Taylor Allderdice is proof he did. I'm not sure there's an exact recipe. Take "Roll Up" for example, with Wiz' track record (literally) and the name of his debut album, you'd think a song like "Roll Up" would have more than its fair share of smoking references. Instead it was an ode to a girl who'd wait on him hand and foot to "roll up" when she needed him, complete with a Cassie cameo in the video. I guess half a bald b*tch wasn't enough he had to go and get engaged to a...I'm gonna chill. But scenarios like this just screamed to me that in conjunction with Atlantic, Wiz was trying to do too much. The reason people are so drawn to Wiz Khalifa's music in my opinion isn't because any of his rhymes or verses are lyrically dazzling, though he will surprise me and I'm sure other people with an unexpectedly witty sequence of bars, but rather because all he ever does on the mic is have fun, which is missing badly in today's school of rappers. In a day an age when all the buzz is about the rappers who's social commentary and complex song concepts make for adventurous projects (Kendrick Lamar, Jay Electronica, Big K.R.I.T....etc), the art of just rapping about how fun life can be is somewhat of a lost art. Not taking away anything from the artists I just mentioned however, I personally believe them to the be the 3 most talented individuals in the industry, currently.

Point is, Allderdice just sounds like fun. Kush & OJ was fun, and the recipe is pretty much back. Once I saw the video for the first single off the mixtape, "California", I had a feeling Wiz was getting back to that I'ma-just-end-this-bar-off-with-"and I just bought a slice of pepperoni pizza bitch"-because-I-really-just-did-and-I-can-fuckin-do-that vibe he always had in his music. Not only that, his beat selection is impeccable. I'm not sure just how much Wiz individually picked each beat, but whoever it was at TG that assisted him did a hell of a job. Even when Khalifa decided to get all Rolling Papers on niggas and sing his way through "The Cruise" the production was on point, which made the song halfway listenable. And I mention that song because it's one of the very, very few flaws on the tape.

It opens up with a very chill vibe. "California" is probably exactly what the state of California would sound like if converted to audio form, with Wiz wishing he could "ride around with top down, and smoke weed with my niggas" on the hook. It set the theme for the entire project, and after making 11 million last year as I mentioned before, there's no reason he shouldn't be allowed to do that. For those of you who saw the video, you see why I say he got back to the fun sh*t. "Mia Wallace" is another really fun track, with a 1960's piano melody and muffled, deliberately slowed drum rhythm reminiscent of a night at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and its reflective of the vintage nature of the cover of the mixtape.

One thing about mixtapes, that's different from albums at least, is the freedom with the sound that you're allowed. I don't think anybody saw the SpaceGhostPurp-produced "T.A.P." coming. Shit, its only today I saw a picture of Wiz & A$AP surface on Twitter. With the "Pretty Flacko" synthesizers all over it, Purp managed to give Khalifa and Juicy J a really trippy-sounding instrumental, that they both had a lot of fun with, and Wiz couldn't have made it any more obvious the sound he was going for. "Young Khalif on that hippy stuff". Harry Fraud also put together a really good instrumental for the last song on the album, "Blindfolds", that Juicy J also appears on. Putting into play those dazzling horns that made French Montana's "Shot Caller" the New York anthem it became, Wiz & Fraud created an unforgettable ode to being ridiculously rich. Not only that, probably the most lyrically solid song on the 'tape, "The Grinder" came complete with rugged sounds from Seattle's Jake One, who's known for producing some really Death Of Autotune sounding shit for Freeway, 50 Cent, & M.O.P., among others.

I'm being somewhat unfair to Wiz though, I've spoken about everything except the quality of his raps thus far, which is way up from RP. From "Guilty Conscience", which is currently my favorite track on the mixtape (for now, since that tends to change every few days. It was initially "The Code"), to "My Favorite Song" (which is going to end up being my favorite, I hated it when I first heard it, but it usually happens like that), Wiz' rhymes have graduated a bit. His flows seem to come to him a lot easier than they did before, which returns to the theme of him just doing his thing when it comes to writing verses, rather than trying to do too much with song concepts. On Rolling Papers and even in select spots on Cabin Fever it sounded like he was fishing for bars, and sometimes whole verses sounded like they belonged to another song, or another album, or another rapper to be honest. But the raps on Taylor Allderdice flowed together perfectly, and granted almost every song was about the same thing--spending money, smoking weed, having wild sex with diploma-less b*tches & breaking numerous speed limits in excessively expensive motor vehicles--each song was creatively crafted with its own individual vision.

The features on the mixtape were also very well placed, even the Amber Rose hook on "Never Been Part II". When I saw she was credited on the song I almost went straight past that track to "The Cruise", but then I saw Ross step onto the tracklist and I chilled, and its a good thing I did. Wiz probably knew anything more than what she actually did on the song would've been widely unaccepted by both fans and critics alike so the fact that she wasn't even really singing, just seductively speaking on the hook led me to believe that brain cells really don't get fried after excessive weed inhalation. Ross did his usual shit-talking, and so did Smoke DZA, who gave us a little more of the lyrical side of him that we're blessed with once in a while on the mellow-sounding "Rowland". "Nameless" has the same 1960's vibe as "Mia Wallace", and I wasn't mad at that Chevy feature either, which isn't how I usually feel about the rapper formerly known as Kev The Hustla. My favorite features however were all four of Juicy J's verses. Maybe 2 years ago there's no way I could see his and Khalifa's talents meshing together so seamlessly but with this new Three 6 Mafia/Bone Thugz-N-Harmony dimension that Wiz already added to his West coast hippy-sounding musical themes in the past year or so, it seems that Juicy J is and should be Wiz' most frequent collaborator. My favorite of them being "My Favorite Song", which is produced by the same guy that gave Drake the dreamy "Do It All" beat, you'd think Juicy J or anyone sounding like him would be far away from the studio when this song was created, but, like I said, each song was crafted individually on this album, and though the content is pretty monotonous, each one has its own identity, and Wiz saw Juicy on this track, and it worked out perfectly. Pretty much the story for the entire mixtape. I was asked to comment on Lola Monroe's lone apperance on the tape earlier today, and though I'm sure most of us would rather much look at Lola than listen to her, I didn't exactly cringe when I heard her verse so I guess that's a win for the TG camp, yet again.

For those of you that read my review for Drake's Take Care, you'd know I likened his album to the audio version of a drive down an unoccupied side street on a really rainy night. If you can envision that, you can envision Taylor Allderdice to be quite the opposite. Still a drive down a side street at night, but this side street looks like one from "Boyz In Da Hood", lined with the homies, and though its night time, the sun is still out, and the weed is still burning.

-K. Van Gogh