Wiz Khalifa — NPR Tiny Desk Concert, Washington, 2025

On 10 June 2025, Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa settled behind NPR Music’s famous desk in Washington for a Tiny Desk Concert built around his cult mixtape Kush & Orange Juice (2010). This filmed live session, performed with a band and DJ Bonics, reworks in organic arrangements — tinged with jazz, soul and rock — tracks usually driven by studio production. Wiz Khalifa runs through “Red Eye”, “Mezmorized”, “The Kid Frankie”, “Never Been”, “Up” and “Crime Bud and Women”, in the intimate atmosphere characteristic of the format. A striking moment: the artist, moved to tears on spotting family members in the audience, reveals a rare sincerity for this acoustic concert. The Tiny Desk formula, stripping songs of their electronic dressing, spotlights Wiz Khalifa’s writing and flow. A valuable document of live hip-hop, to be discovered as a filmed session to hear anew one of the most influential rap catalogues of the 2010s.