The Details

Wiz Khalifa

O.N.I.F.C.

In 2011, following a year or so of underground acclaim, Wiz Khalifa released Rolling Papers, the third proper album of his career (and first for Atlantic Records). There were two prevailing opinions: 1. It sucked a little, and 2. It sucked a lot. Most rationalized that Khalifa, clearly talented and capable of transcendence (i.e. “Black and Yellow”), simply missed the mark, that his follow-up would be better. Unfortunately, it is not. O.N.I.F.C., a gobbledygook of hums and hymns, is a near replica. There are grand moments (Wiz remains a hyper-personable figure), moments where Wiz rides his buggy voice into sunshine (“It’s Nothin’,” featuring 2 Chainz), and there are good moments (the emptiness of the nine-minute-long “No Limit” and an inspired guest feature by Lola Monroe on “Initiation”). But mostly there are dead moments. O.N.I.F.C. isn’t cohesive enough to be a singular unit, but it’s too predictably nonlinear to be considered randomly interesting.