After winding up in an El Paso, Texas, jail Sunday morning, Wiz Khalifa made the best of the situation. In a matter of hours, he turned the incident into a fan frenzy, promising to take “complete control over the Internet” on Twitter and dropping his hyped mixtape “28 Grams.”
Khalifa made solid work of the attention blitz that followed news of his lockup, tweeting and taking selfies while behind bars conjuring #FreeTrapWiz hashtags all over Twitter in support. And after several hours he was released from jail, tweeting a photo of himself getting on a plane with the caption, “Yall freed me.”
The Philadelphia rapper kept running with the attention throughout the day by actively Tweeting and teasing his new mixtape, “28 Grams,” which he said would drop that night. But his impromptu promotional campaign was not without error.
Pushing the #28grams hashtag and dropping bits such as the digital mixtape’s back cover art with the track listing and a photo of himself in the studio, he promised its release at 8 p.m. But then it was pushed back to 9 p.m., and finally was released at nearly midnight.
Despite disgruntling some fans with the added wait, over this time Twitter turned into a virtual line outside a record store with fans waiting for the time to pass tweeting back and forth in anticipation.
The online jeers turned to praise once the mixtape did finally drop. Khalifa’s “28 Grams” is 28 tracks (an hour and a half) putting his skills on fine display dipping through weed references, heavy hitters and love songs. Features include Khalifa’s Taylor Gang brethren Chevy Woods, Ty$ and Berner with production from the likes of Sonny Digital, Metro Boomin, 808 Mafia, Sledgren and others.
Khalifa originally announced the “28 Grams” mixtape last weekend, saying it would come out before his upcoming “Blacc Hollywood” LP. Speaking on the red carpet at last Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards, Khalifa said that proper studio album will be released sometime around August after his upcoming North American tour with Tyga, Ty Dolla $ign, Mack Wilds, Rich Homie Quan and DJ Drama.
source: billboard.com
