PITTSBURGH — We think of Wiz Khalifa as someone who makes a lot, a lot of music, and does it quickly and almost effortlessly.
But in "Still Rolling Papers," the inaugural documentary from HipHopDX, he provides some insight into the making of "Rolling Papers," his debut album for Atlantic Records.
"They put me in the studio with Stargate and that's when I started writing the songs," he says. "My initial thought was like, 'I'm only recording the songs for the album and I'm going to record a hook today and I'm gonna record a verse tomorrow and I'm gonna record a bridge in three months.' So, they hated me, dog. They were like, 'Put the album together, dog, pleeease. We want to hear a complete song.' I was like, 'Nah, I'm taking my [expletive] time."
He did just that, and "Rolling Papers," released on March 29, 2011, was a double-platinum, nearly chart-topping smash (thanks a lot, Britney!) that launched the weed-fueled Pittsburgh rapper toward the superstardom he's enjoyed for the past decade.
"Still Rolling Papers," a 30-minute doc available for free on YouTube, takes us back a few years before that, to Hazelwood, where the teenage Wiz is with his boys, eating chicken and talking about trying to get into a club. People like Chevy Woods, his future hype man, and Sledgren, a fave producer, recall seeing the potential early on in the tall, lanky kid wearing Chuck Taylors.
"Somehow, I became the face of what was going on," Khalifa says.
Producer E. Dan, who recorded Khalifa's first music at his ID Labs, tells director Jeremy Hecht, "We had that feeling that what we were doing was going to be heard by the world."
In some of those early clips, his fellow Allderdice rapper Mac Miller makes a few brief cameos.
There's no mention of Benjy Grinberg, who signed him to the Pittsburgh-based Rostrum Records and released his first two albums and multiple mixtapes, including the 2009 game-changer "Kush & Orange Juice." That relationship ended in a 2016 lawsuit filed by Khalifa to extricate himself from a Rostrum "360 deal."
Of course, The Taylor Gang, managed by Will Dzombak, took lots of video those days, so there's no shortage of candid backstage video and live clips, including an early show inside Stage AE. There's so much weed throughout, you can almost get a contact high just watching it.
When he came up with "Black and Yellow," a song about his car, which he got because it repped the colors of the Steelers and his hometown, Khalifa says, "People in Pittsburgh didn't think it was gonna be the jam."
Atlantic didn't either. A label marketing rep remembers thinking, "No one cares about your TOWN, sir."
They were all wrong. With a joyful neighborhood video of them bouncing on the Dairy Mart and the Steelers taking a run to the Super Bowl, "Black and Yellow" was gonna be big. The song came out in September 2010, debuting at No. 100 on the charts, and in February 2011, it was his first No. 1 single. The only imperfect thing about the whole affair was the Rashard Mendenhall fumble, which Hecht dares to show.
Khalifa says he knew he'd made it when he was on the cover of Rolling Stone.
It also helped to get the blessing of Snoop Dogg, the rap legend and Pittsburgh Steelers fan who jumped onto a remix of "Black and Yellow."
"Wiz Khalifa, to me," he says in the documentary, "is the rebirth of Snoop Dogg."
When he heard Khalifa's sound, he says, "I could smell the herbs and spices all over it."
In a statement, Sharath Cherian, CEO of HipHopDX, explained, "HipHopDX was founded over 20 years ago with the goal of telling our audience about the stories that matter. So, when it comes to the last decade in music, one of the most inspiring journeys is that of Wiz Khalifa and Taylor Gang. At its core, this documentary is about remaining authentic to who you are, persevering through obstacles and showing everyone that the impossible IS possible."
You'll get all that, along with a treasure of Pittsburgh scenes, from concerts to former Mayor Bill Peduto declaring it "Wiz Khalifa Day" in Pittsburgh.
