Wiz Khalifa just dropped the long-awaited Rolling Papers 2, many hoped would be a flashback to the past: his partnership with Curren$y or his debut record, the first in the series. It's not as if Wiz ever lost his awkward appeal, but when he started looking outward for answers that involuntary muscles started losing its sharpness. Wiz feels the pressure to reacclimate, if he didn't there simply wouldn't have been a sequel in the works.
Wiz even told Billboard last June that Rolling Papers 2 was just as important as the first, but that's well before he could envision the shape and contours of his record. Speed up to the present, Rolling Papers 2 is out, and I bet Wiz is either keeping his eyes peeled for the album's general reception, or quite the contrary, his lost gaze somewhere off in the distance.
The video for "Rolling Papers 2" acts as bit of trailer for the 25-track album, where Wiz assumes the administrative duties of his Taylor Gang empire. He slurps a bowl of ramen as two shadowy figures really test his patience. Wiz rises from the encounter only to find himself wrapped in melancholy. Even a strip club does nothing to raise his spirits.
For one reason of another, Wiz even finds a way to demo his MMA moves in a plot line bordering on subterfuge. But that's not really the point is it? "Rolling Papers 2" is like reversal therapy for him. He can always dote on his album trailer as a placeholder when those inherent differences of opinion start to appear sans invitation.