How smoking weed makes you a better artist according to Wiz Khalifa
Wiz Khalifa is a renowned smoker, and since the day he arrived, he has been known as a big weed toker. Although he once revealed he hates being labelled as a “stoner-rapper”, that was one thing that distinguished him from his peers when he first arrived in the mainstream.
Khalifa has made it known that his first love is weed. With his first album, Rolling Papers, boasting tracks such as ‘Roll Up’ and ‘On My Level’ featuring Too $hort, Khalifa built his brand around the drug in the 2010s and was comfortable doing so.
Although many people smoke weed recreationally, the Pittsburgh lyricist actually uses it for his writing and rapping process and passionately believes that it makes him a better musician and a better lyricist.
The ‘Black And Yellow’ rapper has spoken about how weed boosts his creativity and once expressed how it opens him up, explaining, “Smoking just helps to free my mind, slow my thoughts down and think about everything not only in a more poetic way but in a more creative way in general.” He added, “Just taking my realest ideas and being able to put [them] on paper. It just makes it more vivid. And, like I said, I’m able to just relax and be free. I like to smoke before, during and after I’m making music.”
He then suggested that it made him a more open person, telling Vice, “I would definitely say it makes you more vulnerable and open to sharing personal thoughts.”
He continued, “Back in the day, people just got stoned and had dope conversations—that’s how a lot of songwriting began and how a lot of great concepts came to be. So for me, I just enjoy some weed and being free open to [share] a message if you’re trying to say something and get a point to get across as well.”
According to Wiz Khalifa, when he first began collaborating with Snoop Dogg he introduced him to a special weed ritual unveiling, “My main ritual is to roll out six at a time. I’ve been doing that ever since I met Snoop. He was like, this is just the thing to do. You always gotta have six rolled. So, as soon as I wake up, I roll six of them.”
However, he didn’t know why the number six was so important, laughing, “I don’t know. It’s just a comfortable number of joints to have. You’re going to smoke a few to the head. You’re going to smoke a few with the homies, so six is just a really good number to not have to keep rolling up over and over and over again.”
Wiz Khalifa has since tried to evolve beyond the image of a stoner-rapper. However, his emergence early on as a weed emcee was hard for him to break out of, and over the years, he began to lose wane relevance and power in the mainstream.