At the time of its release, How Fly was initially heavily slept on when you take into account just how big the two artists collaborating on this tape are now. Both Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y are enjoying major commercial success with new record labels, endorsements, and tours. However, as of August 9, 2009 when How Fly was released, Wiz hadn’t released his second album Deal or No Deal let alone his stoner favorite Kush and Orange Juice. Curren$y had only just released This Ain’t No Mixtape and his Jet Files tape two months earlier, but not his breakthrough effort Pilot Talk (2010).

Despite its lack of hype initially, How Fly is now regarded as a game changing record in the “lifestyle rap” genre. From top to bottom, the disc features soothingly smooth beats with intriguing and well cut loops, not to mention the way the styles of pre-Rolling Papers Wiz and Curren$y compliment eachother. What makes this record so dope is the complex raps and imagery used by Spitta and Wiz when simply rapping about their daily lives of chasing women, smoking weed, driving cars, and getting paid. Personal favorites like “The Planes”, “Rollin’ Up”, “The Check Point” and “Car Service”, all manage to capture this theme without sounding forced or repetitive. Understandably, their next collaboration called Live in Concert has a lot more hype but still has some big ass shoes to fill. Light one up, bump it, then check out their joint Facebook here. Pun intended.

-Madden