Kush + Orange Juice 2

Sound DNA

• Hip-Hop

About

It was a big deal when #KushandOrangeJuice became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter upon the release of the eighth Wiz Khalifa mixtape in April 2010, back when “hashtags” and “trending topics” were cutting-edge promotional tools. Back then, it was practically unheard of for a rapper with no major-label deal to be making such big waves (he’d left his former label, Warner Bros., in 2009). But there was something comforting about the red-eyed Pittsburgh rapper’s laidback mode of rapping about the staples of college dorm-room chatter: weed, women, cars, parties… Did we mention weed? Today, <i>Kush & Orange Juice</i> is considered a “blog era” classic—a throwback to a chiller, simpler time. Almost exactly 15 years later, its sequel arrives like a visit from a friend from long ago who’s grown up and gotten richer, but otherwise mostly stayed the same. The 23 terminally chill tracks of <i>Kush + Orange Juice 2</i> feature more of the Taylor Gang touchstones you know and love: jet-ski races, beach picnics, fat joints, drop-tops, crab rolls, hot-boxing Ferrari F8s. He’s joined by a loaded roster of guests who haven’t changed much in the past decade and change, either: Curren$y, Smoke DZA, Chevy Woods, Terrace Martin. “I been doing the same thing since I was 19,” Khalifa crows on “I Might Be,” which might be tragic were those things not so timelessly appealing. Throughout the tape, a radio DJ (broadcasting on a station known as W-E-E-D) offers salient advice: “Don’t stay in the house, man. Jump in the car. Ride around with the homies and the homegirls, and put on some of that Wiz Khalifa, y’all.”

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits