Celebrating Hip-Hop at Tortuga Music Festival — yup you read that right — Power 96’s Mijo caught up with Wiz Khalifa and DJ Bonics backstage to talk Taylor Gang, Kush & Orange Juice turning thirteen, weed culture and a whole lot more.
LISTEN NOW: Wiz Khalifa at Tortuga Music Festival
“It’s cool man, I dropped the mixtape, it’s now an album, but I dropped it 13 years ago," Wiz said about the project that really put him on the map. “I was in Miami the day that I dropped it, so I actually launched it from here," he noted with the South Florida oceanfront not in view, but right outside.
“I just remember the feeling, I was on tour, I was just rippin’ it up. And when I got to Miami, I’d seen the beach, the water, I felt the weather, I was smoking weed, I had my hair out. I was like this is the perfect place to drop it at.”
Now, thirteen years later, Wiz admitted, “re-feeling those feelings, having new music on the way, being on tour, having a tour on the way, it just gets me really excited.”
As for where the vision was for him at that point in time, Wiz shared, “for me it was like a steady climb… something I’d been working on for a minute, just developing my sound and trying to figure out what I wanted to bring to the game… I landed on Kush & Orange Juice but there was Star Power, Prince of the City, Prince of the City 2, so all these things helped me to get to where I was at sonically. And I think just all of the culmination of the internet, me being on tour, me being in a really fresh young new phase, smoking a lot of weed and doing what the hell I wanted to do… Kush & Orange Juice kinda became the Bible for that.”
Also up for discussion — marijuana, cannabis, weed, whatever you wanna call it and how its been perceived throughout the years. As well as it’s connection to Hip-Hop music and culture and how, as Wiz put it, it “just brings people together.”
As more of a self-described “alternative rap artist,” as a opposed to the “traditional Hip-Hop dude,” for Wiz weed has been a way he could “cross genres with everybody.” From reggaeton artists, to funk artists from Brazil, or somebody in Korea, “we all tap in to smoke weed… it’s a language of its own.”
Wiz and Bonics also got it discussing the DJ/Artist relationship, answering questions like — What is the foundation? What is it like now compared to 2010? And what is the importance and significance of having someone like Bonics up on stage with him?
Then, referencing a previous Audacy interview in which Maseo from De La Soul told Mike Street that one of the many things that has influenced his music is watching karate flicks, Mijo was curious if there was something like that for Wiz while growing up that influenced his sound and the way he makes music.
“Pimp movies,” Wiz revealed, “I get my flavor from the Pimp movies.” Listing off examples like Super Fly (the original one), “but not just the ones about pimpin’” he added, “the Blaxploitation movies in general, just the characters, being strong, Black… and just being cool, having a swag about your business,” Wiz went on. For Bonics, its all about “basketball,” and all those 90s basketball films like Above the Rim and White Men Can’t Jump, even Air Bud (jk, but not really).
Bringing things full circle Wiz and Bonics talked about why it’s important to celebrate Hip-Hop and what the Hip-Hop community means to him. For all that and more, check out the entire interview above.
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