A Quick Note on Wiz Khalifa’s “Good Dank”
February 12th, 2013 by david brothers | Tags: wiz khalifaThere’s two things about Wiz Khalifa’s “Good Dank” off his Kush & OJ mixtape that I’d excitedly refer to as my favorite (or the best, or the superior, or…) thing about Wiz Khalifa (or rap, or music, or jokes, or puns, or…) should you make the fatal mistake of asking me about pretty much anything.
The first is this line:
“Louies cover my eyes… not them hundred dollar Ray-Bans, fam — these six seventy-five”
Rappers do this thing where they brag about having expensive stuff, right? Everybody that ever rhymed Maybach with laid back, everyone who ever said the word “beamer,” everyone who said “Cristahl.” But what they don’t do too often is brag about having the expensiver version of expensive stuff. Who does that, right?
But here’s Young Wizdom. He knows Ray-Bans are expensive. (I myself managed to talk myself into a pair in the 10th grade, which I promptly lost. A year later, I lost my first cell phone.) So he wants to make it clear that even though some of us can scrimp and save and wheedle our way into some expensive sunglasses, there is a tier of sunglass above even that lofty tier, a tier that we are not welcome to visit, and it’s silly we even formed our mouths to ask the question.
Cold-blooded.
My other favorite thing about this song is this line:
“Got my paper right, now we like white boy hair the way they… …jealous”
Now, rappers say a lot of dumb things. I listen to a lot of rap, so believe me when I say rappers say a lot of dumb things. Sometimes it’s amazing, other times it’s excruciating, and sometimes it’s this, which is the most beautifullest thing in this world.
The line is amazing because Wiz is looking us dead in our eyes while he delivers it. It’s some type of ultra reverse double dog dare. When he gets to “got my paper right” you’re nodding along. You’re in familiar territory. “We like white boy hair?” Hmm… that’s kinda weird. Where’s he going with this? “The way they…” hits and you think, huh, weird. What’s he gonna say? And the second “…” hits and you get it, and you don’t want it, you’re like, No, no way, this dude isn’t about to do that. Who’d do that? Right?
“Jealllllllllllllous,” Wiz says, and your feel it hit in short sharp shocks to your spinal cord and you’re laughing and you’re amazed that he was so confident when he said it and you’re damned forever.
Similar Posts:
- It’s Your Hair Because You Paid For It
- Who Wants the Watchmen (Blu-ray)?
- Pre-order Planet Hulk and Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
- Create, Consume, Recycle 06/20/11
- monday mixtape bumaye
Does Wizzard Kushmaster still “rap” while barley rhyming? (I’m listening to Daft Punks Discovery right now, and I’ll damned if I turn that off for Wiz.)
From what, admittedly little, I’ve heard from this dude all the “I somehow got rich, let me tell you about it” rapping is made worse by the depth of his word appearing to be lost in a vacuum of mindless self indulgence, monetary excess and weed references. All crammed into 3 minutes, give or take. I’m at a point where anything he says gets get lost in the, “Talentless rapper” folder of my memory.
idk maybe I’m just a hater, but I can’t Wiz seriously. Like, at least Trinidad James or Waka Flocka, dumb as they are, manage to rhyme on a consistant basis. Even if It’s all trite as hell, it’s at least amusing in a way that Wizzard of the Kush is not. /end late night rant #usingadudeswebsiteasasoapbox
Hi David. Have you noticed that the categories seem to be broken on the blog? When I click on the “music” category, this post doesn’t show up in it. The most recent post is from August 2012.
I’m pointing it out because a friend of mine was looking for good writing on music and I wanted to recommend your blog, but they’re not really interested in comics so the filtering would’ve been a big help. (I’m still gonna recommend it, though.)
@Yan Basque: I hadn’t, no! Thanks for the tip. I use a caching program to keep things running smoothly, and it was doing a poor job of things, apparently. I couldn’t tell, because it doesn’t cache for me, since I’m logged in. It should be fixed now, I hope.
@Antonio:
While I agree with you that Wiz’ rap can be pretty mindless (check my review of O.N.I.F.C. here , I think its very interesting and apt that David highlighted this track, off this mixtape. Kush & Orange juice was hands down the best mixtape of 2010, and easily one of the most memorable of the 10 years. K & OJ set the stage for soooooooo many rappers who try to recreate Wiz’ brand of weed rap, swag and extravagance and when you listen to how bad of a job they do at it, Wiz’ smooth swag on K & OJ becomes even more immaculate.
I don’t really listen to Wiz anymore because of the reasons you’ve listed, but if you haven’t heard or re-examined the importance of this mixtape, maybe now is the time my friend!
Yeah, I feel like ONIFC started out real strong, but then got boring after four or five joints. Current Wiz makes getting high sound pretty boring, but Kush & OJ Wiz is on point. I cosign pretty much everything Brandon says.