We at Hip Hop N More were lucky enough to attend Wiz Khalifa’s O.N.I.F.C. listening session last night at Westway in New York City. The smaller venue was packed in with media, label reps, and the usual industry event crowd. Wiz and his immediate Taylor Gang crew was on hand to showcase his sophomore album on Rostrum/Atlantic which formally lands in stores on December 4th.
After a little wait, Wiz got up from his booth where he had seemingly been rolling a numerous amount of Js. He and the team headed to the DJ booth/stage area in the main room. Upon settling in his booth in front of the entire crowd, Wiz got on the mic to say a few words and introduce his album. Throughout the session, he had a brief description for every song which included title info and anecdotes etc. He played the album from top to bottom as the crowd continued to take advantage of the open bar, the trio of dancers dressed like wild animals vibed out to the music, and the Taylors smoked copious amounts of pot. Wiz and his crew did not stop smoking and drinking Bombay throughout the entire night. It was quite a sight.
Okay, back to the album. I want to start first off by saying that the atmosphere in which we heard the album was not the best suited for critical analysis. The constant cloud of smoke was giving the entire crowd a contact high. Nonetheless, we listened as Wiz’ DJ played each track. This album is very different than Rolling Papers as in it does not have the same commercial/mainstream feel. There is a lot of experimentation with some R&B as well as Trap sound infused into a few cuts. We thought the features on the project complimented Wiz’ style quite well.
You are not going to be too surprised by the subject matter on the project. From what Wiz said and what we heard from the records is that this album is more about the overall sound of the music rather than the subject matter of the lyrics. This music is the type you press play to smoke to, or relax to, or even ride to, but we do not see it necessarily inspiring anyone.
Overall, we thought the album was pretty well put together. Some stand-out tracks (other than the ones already released) include ‘Rise Above’ produced by Pharrell, who supposedly got contact high in the studio when they made the record. Another one was ‘Initiation’ — Taylor Gang anthem made for the clubs. ‘Medicated’ is a great upbeat ending to the album leaving the listener on a high note. If you’ve been a Wiz fan since his last few projects, you are going to be satisfied with this LP.
Check out some more photos below and pre-order the album here.
