Hollywood songs like the ballad “Promises”, the handclap-packed “Ass Drop”, and the Nicki Minaj collaboration “True Colors” are more representative of the album than any of the relatively rappy songs, or even “We Dem Boyz”, its distinctively Auto-Tuned hit.
He’s continuing with it, to a degree, but the present version is much poppier. The classic Wiz sound, if there is one, is awash with crisp drums and wiggly, melodic synths - typified by 2010’s “Mesmerized” and other Kush & Orange Juice songs that sound like the equivalent of a smoke-clouded monastery, just incredibly mellow. “Raw” succeeds for similar reasons, with Wiz promising, “Niggas want beef?/ You can get it raw.” It’s easy to get the sense, though, that Wiz hasn’t grown as a lyricist since he arrived in the mainstream here, his wordplay peaks with lines like “Pop a bottle if you suck and swallow.” Also bland is his seriousness on “House in the Hills” and “No Gain” - the first is about as stressed-out that a song featuring Curren$y can be. On booming opener “Hope”, featuring Ty Dolla $ign, he adopts the same cockiness that worked so well for him on Future’s “My Momma”, taunting undersexed listeners who ball like Robert Swift: “Hope you got thousands in your pocket ’cause she ain’t lookin’ for love.” Frankly, it’s nice to hear Wiz act like a meathead once in a while. That confidence carries over to several moments on Hollywood, if not enough. The success of his 28 Grams mixtape earlier this year showed that Wiz can rely on his rapping, rather than rapping and singing, to yield hugely popular results. Altogether, Hollywood is a serviceable listen, consistently hooky and danceable. Luke, meanwhile, casts a longer shadow than that of producers like street rap lane-pavers Young Chop and Metro Boomin.
It’s easy to imagine another world in which Ke$ha sings one or two of these choruses (no offense to Ke$ha, or even to Wiz), including that of “Stayin Out All Night”. In the booth, Wiz jumps from rapping to singing and vice versa, looking to find new (for him) ways to stamp melodies and stoner mantras into our brains.
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Wiz and wife/model Amber Rose have a son now (Sebastian), and whereas parenthood tends to make artists more contemplative, Wiz, being Wiz, told the Detroit Free Press that it’s a reason to be a lovable goof even more of the time, “whether it be like singing all day or laughing and being silly and just joking and stuff like that.” More importantly, though, it’s a Wiz Khalifa album, the product of a lighthearted guy as likely to adopt a Jamaican accent on a weed song as he is to uncork a truly impressive flow.
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Above all, he remains in full control of his ability to make entire high schools chiller by extension - too chill, maybe, considering that he’s shown virtually no interest in ramping up his style. Now 26 years old and on his fifth solo album, Blacc Hollywood, Wiz has developed a prodigious ear for melody, puts it to regular use, and continues to write songs that could be subtitled “Smoking with Wiz 101 - Swishers Strictly Prohibited”. Wiz Khalifa is not a risk taker, unless you count his insistence on carrying his own weed and all the resulting police hounding.
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