Lace Code Readers!!!!
I know it’s been a minute since I’ve posted, but I’m back. Life’s been busy and it’s only about to get busier, but I’m locking back in and making sure I give y’all the content you want and deserve.
We’re back in the blog era series, but today isn’t about the blogs themselves or how everything started. Today, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite artists from that era—and still someone I go back to all the time, especially his older stuff.
That’s Wiz Khalifa.
Wiz has some absolute gems—mixtapes, albums, all of it. But this isn’t just about his music. It’s about the memories tied to it. Middle school, high school, basketball, being with my boys—Wiz was a huge part of that time in my life.
Mixtapes had always been a major way for artists to get their music out, but as we’ve talked about before, platforms like DatPiff and LiveMixtapes changed everything.
They made music digital. Accessible. Instant.
At the same time, MySpace gave artists a place to build.
Wiz used all of it—and mastered it.
This is also where Taylor Gang really started to become a thing. Not just a crew, but a movement. TGOD wasn’t just something you listened to—it was something you felt like you were a part of.
At that time, artists had the tools:
MySpace gave them a home.
Blogs gave them validation.
DatPiff gave them distribution.
But there was still one thing they needed…
Identity.
And Wiz had that figured out.
He wasn’t just dropping music. He was building something. The lifestyle, the energy, the visuals—it all felt natural. You knew what Wiz represented.
And people bought into that completely.
Wiz started gaining traction in the mid-2000s with “Say Yeah,” but that was just the beginning.
Projects like How Fly and Burn After Rolling showed what he could do. He was experimenting, rapping over familiar beats, building his sound.
And I gotta shout out one of my personal favorites—“The Thrill.”
That song? Timeless.
I remember running that back over and over. Still one of my favorite Wiz tracks to this day.
You could feel things building. Then he hit the XXL Freshman cover in 2010—and from there, it was up.
Kush & Orange Juice.
Man…that wasn’t just a mixtape—that was a moment.
Blogs were posting it everywhere. Twitter was going crazy. It was the #1 trending topic. Google searches were through the roof.
And yeah…this was one of those drops that literally crashed DatPiff because everybody was trying to download it at the same time.
That’s when everything we talk about in this series came together:
Blogs created anticipation.
DatPiff handled the drop.
The internet carried it.
At that point, Wiz wasn’t coming up anymore—
he was the moment.
That run changed everything.
He signs with Atlantic Records, starts hitting bigger stages, gets major features, builds an even bigger fanbase.
And one of the craziest things?
He turned down a tour with Drake to run his own Waken Baken tour—and still sold it out.
That tells you how real his movement was.
Another reason Wiz lasted?
Consistency.
He never disappeared. He kept dropping, kept showing up, kept feeding his audience.
In the blog era, that mattered.
There were no algorithms saving you. No playlists pushing your music.
If you weren’t active, you were gone.
Wiz stayed active—and stayed relevant.
Then there’s Taylor Gang.
That wasn’t just branding—it was community.
People wore it, tweeted it, lived it.
I remember me and my friends saying “TGOD” like it was second nature. It felt like you were part of something.
That’s something a lot of artists didn’t build the same way.
Wiz didn’t just build fans—
he built a culture.
Everything about him fit the era perfectly:
His sound matched the blogs.
His mixtapes thrived on DatPiff.
His personality translated online.
His brand was simple and repeatable.
And most importantly—
it felt real.
And in that era, authenticity was everything.
Some of my best memories with Wiz’s music come from middle school and high school.
I remember being at team camp at Presbyterian with my basketball team, blasting 28 Grams everywhere we went. That tape stayed on repeat.
Then Taylor Allderdice—one of my favorite mixtapes ever. Me and the boys had that on constantly in 8th and 9th grade.
And I’ll be real—
When I got older and started smoking, Wiz’s music hit different.
It wasn’t just something I listened to anymore—it became a whole vibe. A different level of appreciation.
That’s part of what made his music so impactful—
it grew with you.
Wiz showed that it wasn’t just about dropping great music.
It was about building something people could connect to.
Something they felt a part of.
And once he did that, the relationship between artist and fan changed.
Because the next phase of the blog era wasn’t just about music anymore.
It was about connection.
– Jett Garden
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