"Hard" is a song by Barbadian recording artist Rihanna from her fourth studio album, Rated R, which was released in 2009. The song was written by Terius Nash, Christopher Stewart, Rihanna, and Jeezy, with vocals performed by the latter two. Nash and Stewart produced it under their stage names, The-Dream and Tricky Stewart. "Hard" was released by Def Jam Recordings on February 19, 2010, as the second United States single from Rated R. It is a hip hop song and features military horns, hissing synthesizers, sharp beats and piano chords. Critics commended "Hard" for Rihanna's vocal performance and Jeezy's collaboration.

The song became Rihanna's thirteenth top ten hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, matching Beyoncé Knowles as the female artist with the most US top ten songs since 2000. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. An accompanying music video, directed by Melina Matsoukas, was filmed in Los Angeles in December 2009. In the video, Rihanna commands an army while clothed in stylized military costumes. Critics praised the video and noted a difference from her previous clips. After the video premiere, the song charted in Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Rihanna performed "Hard" at Jay-Z's concert at UCLA Pauley Pavilion and at the 2009 American Music Awards. The song was also included on the set lists of the Last Girl on Earth Tour (2010–11) and the Loud Tour (2011).

Background and composition[link]

	"Hard" noicon A 22-second audio sample of Rihanna singing the chorus of the song, which features militant horns, hissing synths, sharp beats and piano notes[1]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In an interview with MTV News, producer Mikkel S. Eriksen of Stargate initially confirmed "Wait Your Turn" as the second single from Rated R; however, "Hard" was ultimately chosen instead.^[2] Hard (The Remixes) was made available for digital download on January 19, 2010 in the United States.^[3] In an interview with MTV, Rihanna explained that while she was in Paris, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and The-Dream played a few songs for her, which included "Hard". Rihanna decided to record the song because it was different from her normal creative output.^[4] Stewart, in an interview with Rap-Up, spoke about the song before its title or any details were released, describing the song as "edgy" and a "club banger". When asked if the song was bigger than Rihanna's commercially successful song "Umbrella", he said, "No, it's different. It's a superstar taking a step in a totally different direction."^[5] "Hard" is the first song for which Jeezy was credited thus, instead of under his enduring stage name "Young Jeezy".^[5][6]

"Hard" incorporates musical elements of hip hop and is four minutes and ten seconds long. It features militant horns, hissing synths, sharp beats and piano notes.^[1][7] It is written in the key of B minor and set in common time with a pop and R&B groove and a tempo of 100 beats per minute.^[8] Rihanna's vocal range in the song ranges from the low note of G₃ to the high note of B₄.^[8] As noted by Ailbhe Malone of NME, Rihanna adopts Jay-Z's vocal style in the lyric, "Brilliant, resilient, fan mail from 27 million."^[9] "Hard" is a song about emulating power and strength, and how Rihanna assumes a role of being the best at what she does.^[10][11] Ryan Dombell of Pitchfork Media wrote that the song is "a strutting statement of power".^[10]

Critical reception[link]

Rihanna performing "Hard" on the Loud Tour in Sunrise, Florida, sitting on an army tank similar to the one featured in the music video

"Hard" received generally positive reviews from music critics. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that Rihanna lashes out on the song, with "help from an even harder-edged MC, Young Jeezy."^[12] Monica Herrerra of Billboard magazine wrote: "Rihanna effectively assumes the hip-hop posture and even recruits the ultimate street cred booster in rapper Young Jeezy, who provides the thrust needed to send a song with a somewhat inert chorus home".^[7] Herrerra continued, "Though 'Hard' doesn't find Rihanna in her typical comfort zone, the atypical is precisely what she has aimed for with her new material—and it works".^[7] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called "Hard" and "Rude Boy" the highlights of Rated R, and wrote, "both of which exploit Rihanna's most appealing vocal style, a sulky, icy, monotone".^[13] Petridis also noted that the song "undercuts the standard braggathon of Hard—'fan mail from 27 million'".^[13] Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly commented on Rihanna's vocal style and the persona she adopts in the song. Greenblatt wrote, "Rihanna dons hip-hop swagger like borrowed armor, leaning heavily on her Caribbean accent and unleashing a string of baddest-bitch boasts via dancehall-riddim'd bangers like 'Hard,' 'G4L,' and 'Wait Your Turn'".^[14] Ryan Dombell of Pitchfork Media wrote, "the bulletproof guise is good for the record's high point on 'Hard', a strutting statement of power bolstered by a roiling undertow of a beat from 'Umbrella' producer Tricky Stewart."^[10]

Chart performance[link]

In the United States, "Hard" peaked at No. 8 on January 30, 2010.^[15] It became Rihanna's thirteenth US top ten Hot 100 single, and Rihanna equaled Beyoncé Knowles as the female artist with the most US top ten hit singles since 2000.^[16] The song reached No. 1 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart on March 6, 2010,^[17] reached No. 9 on the US Pop Songs, and No. 14 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.^[18] "Hard" was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting sales of over one million.^[19]

Although the single was not released internationally, it charted in several countries after the release of the music video. In Canada, it peaked for one week at No. 9 on February 6, 2010.^[20] In New Zealand, it debuted at No. 40 on January 11, 2010 and peaked at No. 15 in its fifth week, and it stayed in the top twenty for a further two weeks.^[21] "Hard" debuted and peaked at No. 26 on the Swedish Singles Charton January 22, 2010. It dropped off the chart for a week, but re-entered at No. 55.^[22] In the United Kingdom, "Hard" debuted at No. 46 on the UK R&B Chart on January 16, 2010, peaking at No. 17 on January 23, 2010.^[23] The same day, the song debuted at No. 55 on the UK Singles Chart, and peaked at No. 42 the following week.^[24] "Hard" spent another six weeks on the chart, descending to No. 100 on February 24, 2010 and leaving the chart on March 3, 2010. It re-entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 64 on August 28, 2010, and fell to No. 89 the following week. In total, it spent ten non-consecutive weeks on the UK singles chart.^[24]

Music video[link]

Background and synopsis[link]

The music video for "Hard" was directed by Melina Matsoukas and filmed in December 2009 in Los Angeles.^[25][26] It was the first Rihanna video directed by Matsoukas, who would go on to direct videos for "Rude Boy" and "Rockstar 101".^[27][28] Before the premiere of the video, Rihanna told Kyle Anderson of MTV News: "It's couture-military. Everything is surrounded by the whole idea of something military. We have tanks, we have troops, we've got helicopters, we've got explosions.[...] Tight gear, lots of cute outfits, lots of bullets. Crazy."^[26]

The video's first scene is set in a desert at night. Rihanna, wearing a garrison cap, sunglasses, and a stylized white top, stands in front of an army. This scene is intercut with scenes of Rihanna in a bunker; she wears an army hard hat, pink lace up boots, and a skin-colored top with small black rectangles covering her breasts. Half way through the first verse, the scene changes to a daytime desert scene in which Rihanna wears a low cut, short black dress with spiked shoulder pads, and walks through the location as small explosions occur around her.

As the first chorus begins, earlier scenes from the video are intercut with each other; Rihanna is shown commanding her troops, firing a machine gun, and dancing in the bunker. As the second verse begins, Rihanna is seen with slicked-back hair wearing a metal bikini top, rolling in mud and surrounded by troops on a stone structure before a mountainous backdrop. She is shown gambling with (and winning against) soldiers in another bunker.

As the second chorus starts, Rihanna, wearing a bullet bra and a helmet similar in appearance to the ears of Mickey Mouse, stands on a pink army tank. During Jeezy's rap verse, Jeezy is seen in the middle of a crosshair, and explosions occur around Rihanna. During the bridge and final chorus of the song, scenes of Rihanna from throughout the video are intercut with each other. In this sequence, Rihanna wears a high-waisted black bikini and waves a large black flag with a white "R" in the middle of it.

Reception[link]

Peter Gaston of Spin wrote that the video for "Hard" resembles "Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation' meets Christina Aguilera's 'Dirrty' phase—Rihanna vamps in dimly lit outposts, dodges explosions in the desert, and, quite enticingly, takes a break from boot camp to smother herself with mud. Morale-boosting, indeed!"^[29] James Dinh of MTV News showed the video, on a small player, to fans in Times Square in New York City to ask their opinions. Most said she looked "sexy" in the video, and agreed that it was different from previous videos and shows where she came from and where she is going in her personal life.^[30] Bill Lamb of About.com wrote, "I must confess that I do fail to understand the point of Rihanna humping the gun turret of a pink tank dressed in Mickey Mouse ears. It seems pains were taken to make the setting look like Afghanistan or Iraq with the other actors looking as close to real military personnel as possible." Lamb criticized the video's lack of sensitivity and respect for using an army and weapons of destruction to glamorize war, saying, "Does Def Jam, Rihanna's label, need to be reminded that this comes on the heels of sadly sending off an additional 30,000 troops from our country to real war? In my mind this is one of the most tasteless, offensive moves by a major pop artist in recent memory."^[31]

Live performances[link]

Rihanna performing "Hard" on her Last Girl on Earth Tour, wearing the same mouse-eared helmet as in the music video

Rihanna performed "Hard" live for the first time on November 8, 2009 at Jay-Z's concert at UCLA Pauley Pavilion.^[32] To promote Rated R in the UK, Rihanna performed the song with Jeezy at the launch of the Nokia X6 smartphone at Brixton Academy in London.^[33] Other songs on the set list were "Russian Roulette" and "Wait Your Turn" from Rated R, and "Don't Stop the Music", "Take a Bow", "Disturbia", and "Umbrella" (with Jay-Z).^[33]

Rihanna performed "Hard" live at the 2009 American Music Awards on November 22, 2009, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California, as part of a medley with "Wait Your Turn".^[34] Gil Kaufman of MTV wrote that Rihanna was wearing a "skintight white catsuit bisected by cut-out lines that revealed horizontal lines of skin across her body, spiked shoulder pads, white studded cuffs and a barbed-wire bracelet snaking up her right forearm".^[35] The performance started with a science fiction themed video clip, which featured robots performing a surgical operation on Rihanna. After finishing "Wait Your Turn," Rihanna began singing "Hard"; red lasers were shone across the stage and audience, and red tracer beams shone from Rihanna's spiked shoulder pads.^[35] On December 5, 2010, Rihanna made her Saturday Night Live debut performance, singing "Russian Roulette" and "Hard", with Jeezy accompanying her performance of the latter.^[36] Rihanna also sang "Hard" on BET's 106 & Park on December 10, 2009,^[37] and on NBC's "New Year's Eve with Carson Daly 2010".^[38]

To promote the single's release in the US, Rihanna appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show on February 1, 2010, where she sang "Hard" and "Don't Stop the Music".^[39] The following day, Rihanna recorded some video performances of her songs for AOL Music Sessions, which were made available to watch on AOL's website on February 23, 2010.^[40] The set included Rihanna's singles "Russian Roulette", "Hard", "Take a Bow", and a stripped down version of "Disturbia".^[40] On February 4, 2010, she performed "Hard" at the Super Bowl Fan Jam on VH1, sharing billing with Timbaland and Justin Bieber.^[41]

On March 27, 2010, Rihanna performed the song as part of a medley with "Rude Boy" and "Don't Stop the Music" at the 2010 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion in Westwood, California.^[42] The performance featured a large camouflage tank and two robots, similar to those used for Rihanna's performance at the ECHO Awards, where she performed "Rude Boy."^[42] Rihanna performed "Hard" at Radio 1's Big Weekend 2010 on May 23, 2010 in Bangor, Wales,^[43] where she also performed "Madhouse", "Disturbia", "Rude Boy", "Te Amo", "Russian Roulette", "Don't Stop the Music, "SOS", and "Umbrella".^[44] Rihanna wore a reggae-inspired leather playsuit with red, green and yellow stripes.^[43] "Hard" was included on the set list of Rihanna's Last Girl on Earth^[45] and Loud tours.^[46]

Format and track listing[link]

The Remixes – Digital EP^[3]

1. "Hard" (Jump Smokers Radio Edit) – 3:10
2. "Hard" (Chew Fu Granite Fix Radio Edit) – 3:43
3. "Hard" (Jody den Broeder Radio Edit) – 3:30
4. "Hard" (Jump Smokers Extended) – 3:36
5. "Hard" (Chew Fu Granite Fix Extended) – 5:27
6. "Hard" (Jody den Broeder Club Remix) – 6:43
7. "Hard" (Jody den Broeder Dub) – 6:45

Credits and personnel[link]

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Rated R.^[47]

• Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Robyn "Rihanna" Fenty and Jay Jenkins – Songwriting
• Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Terius "The-Dream" Nash – Production
• Ross Parkin – Assistant recorder
• Makeba Riddick – Vocal production
• Marcos Tovar, Brian "B-LUV" Thomas, Andrew Wuepper, Chris "TEK" O’Ryan and Pat Thrall for Rihanna. – Engineer
• Cédric Culnaërt, Sébastien Salis, Luis Navarro, Tyler Van Dalen, Jason Sherwood and Steven Dennis – Assistant Engineer
• Jaycen Joshua at Penua Project at Larrabee Studios, Universal City, California, United States – Mixing
• Giancarlo Lino – Assistant mixer
• Monte Neuble – Additional keys
• Studios Devout, Paris, France; The Boom Boom Room, Burbank, California, United States; Legacy Recording Studios, New York City, New York, United States and Triangle Sound Studios, Atlanta, Georgia, United States. – Recording

Charts, certifications and precession[link]

Radio and release history[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

	Book: Rated R (Rihanna album)
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• Rihanna ft. Young Jeezy – Hard Music Video

Look up hard or hardness in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Hard or Hardness may refer to:

• Hardness, resistance of physical materials to change under force
• Hard water, water with a high mineral content
• NP-hard, a term used in Computational complexity theory
• Hard, Austria, a town in Austria
• Hard (Zürich), a quarter in Zürich
• Hard (tennis), a type of tennis court
• Hard (music festival), concerts and live events
• Hard, or hard-on, a slang term for an erection
• Hard (nautical), a firm or paved beach or slope convenient for hauling vessels out of the water
• Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, abbreviated H.A.R.D.

Music

• Hard (band), a Hungarian hard rock supergroup
• Hard (Brainpower album)
• Hard (Gang of Four album)
• Hard (Jagged Edge album)
• "Hard" (song), by Rihanna

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Three singers-a trio-singing a song while accompanied on a lute played by one of the singers. Das Konzert [The Concert] (c. 1490, Lorenzo Costa).

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose.

A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. One division is between "art songs", "pop songs", and "folk songs". Other common methods of classification are by purpose (sacred vs secular), by style (dance, ballad, Lied, etc.), or by time of origin (Renaissance, Contemporary, etc.).

A song is a piece of music for accompanied or unaccompanied voice or voices or, "the act or art of singing," but the term is generally not used for large vocal forms including opera and oratorio.^[1] However, the term is, "often found in various figurative and transferred sense (e.g. for the lyrical second subject of a sonata...)."^[1] The noun "song" has the same etymological root as the verb "to sing" and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word to mean "that which is sung" or "a musical composition suggestive of song." The OED also defines the word to mean "a poem" or "the musical phrases uttered by some birds, whales, and insects, typically forming a recognizable and repeated sequence and used chiefly for territorial defence or for attracting mates." ^[2]

Cultural types[link]

Art songs[link]

Art songs are songs created for performance in their own right, usually with piano accompaniment, although they can also have other types of accompaniment such as an orchestra or string quartet, and are always notated. Generally they have an identified author and composer and require voice training for acceptable performance. German-speaking communities use the term art song ("Kunstlied") to distinguish so-called "serious" compositions from folk song ("Volkslied"). The lyrics are often written by a poet or lyricist and the music separately by a composer. Art songs may be more formally complicated than popular or folk songs, though many early Lieder by the likes of Franz Schubert are in simple strophic form. They are often important to national identity.

Art songs feature in many European cultures, including but not limited to: Russian (romancy), German (Lieder), Italian (canzoni), French (mélodies), Scandinavian (sånger), Portuguese (canções), Spanish (canciones). There are also highly regarded British and American art songs in the English language. Cultures outside of Europe that have a classical music tradition, such as India, may or may not feature art songs. The accompaniment of European art songs is considered as an important part of the composition.

The art song of the period in which they originally flowered is often a duet in which the vocalist and accompanist share in interpretive importance. The pieces were most often written to be performed in a home or salon setting, although today the works enjoy popularity as concert pieces. The emergence of poetry during this era was much of what inspired the creation of these pieces by Brahms, Schumann, Schubert and other composers. These composers set poems in their native language. Many works were inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. Another method would be to write new music for each stanza to create a unique form; this was through-composed form known in German as durchkomponiert. A combination of both of these techniques in a single setting was called a modified strophic form. Often romantic art songs sharing similar elements were grouped as a song cycle.^[3]

Folk songs[link]

Folk songs are songs of often anonymous origin (or are public domain) that are transmitted orally. They are frequently a major aspect of national or cultural identity. Art songs often approach the status of folk songs when people forget who the author was. Folk songs are also frequently transmitted non-orally (that is, as sheet music), especially in the modern era. Folk songs exist in almost every culture.

Popular songs[link]

Modern popular songs are typically distributed as recordings and are played on the radio, though all other mass media that have audio capabilities are involved. Their relative popularity is inferred from commercially significant sales of recordings, ratings of stations and networks that play them, and ticket sales for concerts by the recording artists. A popular song can become a modern folk song when members of the public who learn to sing it from the recorded version teach their version to others. Popular songs may be called pop songs for short, although pop songs or pop music may instead be considered a more commercially popular genre of popular music as a whole.

See also[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Song

• Air (music)
• Animal song: bird song, whale song, zoomusicology
• Aria
• Ballad
• Canticle
• Category:Musical forms
• Hymn
• Instrumental
• Lied
• Madrigal (music)
• Song structure (popular music)
• Vocal music
• Theme song
• Poem and song
• Singing

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Marcello Sorce Keller (1984), "The Problem of Classification in Folksong Research: a Short History", Folklore, XCV, no. 1, 100- 104.

Wiz Khalifa
Wiz Khalifa in Brooklyn, New York in August 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Cameron Jibril Thomaz
Born	(1987-09-08) September 8, 1987 (age 24) Minot, North Dakota, United States
Genres	Hip hop
Occupations	Rapper, singer, songwriter, actor
Years active	2005–present
Labels	Rostrum, Taylor Gang, Warner Bros., Atlantic
Associated acts	Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Curren$y, Big Sean, Chevy Woods, Mac Miller, Juicy J, Tinie Tempah, Yelawolf, Maroon 5, Big K.R.I.T.
Website	wizkhalifa.com

Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), better known by the stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper. He released his debut album, Show and Prove, in 2006, and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2007. His Eurodance-influenced single, "Say Yeah", received urban radio airplay, charting on the Rhythmic Top 40 and Hot Rap Tracks charts in 2008.^[1] Khalifa parted with Warner Bros. and released his second album, Deal or No Deal, in November 2009. He released the mixtape Kush and Orange Juice as a free download in April 2010; he then signed with Atlantic Records.^[2] He is also well known for his debut single for Atlantic, "Black and Yellow", which peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album for the label, Rolling Papers, was released on March 29, 2011.^[3]

Early life[link]

Khalifa was born on September 8, 1987 to a mother and a father serving in the military.^[1][4] His parents divorced when Khalifa was about three years old. His parents' military service caused him to move regularly: Khalifa lived in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh where he attended Taylor Allderdice High School.^[1][4]

His stage name is derived from khalifa, an Arabic word meaning "successor", and wisdom, which was shortened to Wiz when Khalifa was a young boy .^[5] Khalifa stated to spinner.com that the name also came from being called "young Wiz 'cause I was good at everything I did, and my granddad is Muslim, so he gave me that name; he felt like that's what I was doing with my music." He got his stage name tattooed on his 17th birthday.^[6][7] He includes Jimi Hendrix, Camp Lo, The Notorious B.I.G. and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony among his influences.^[8]

Career[link]

[edit] 2005–08: Early mixtapes and Show and Prove

Rostrum Records president Benjy Grinberg first heard about Wiz Khalifa in 2004 when the rapper's contribution to a mixtape of various new Pittsburgh artists attracted his interest.^[9] When Grinberg finally met the 16-year-old artist, he immediately decided he wanted to work with him, later telling HitQuarters: "Even though he wasn’t all the way developed you could just tell that he was a diamond in the rough, and that with some polishing, guidance and backing he could become something special."^[9] Khalifa signed to the label shortly after and began a seven year period of artist development.^[9]

Khalifa released his first mixtape, Prince of the City: Welcome to Pistolvania, in 2005. The mixtape paved the way for his first full length album entitled Show and Prove in 2006. Khalifa was declared an "artist to watch" that year in Rolling Stone magazine.^[10][11]

In 2007, Khalifa signed to Warner Bros. Records and released two mixtapes through Rostrum Records: Grow Season, hosted by DJ Green Lantern and released on July 4, 2007, and Prince of the City 2, released on November 20, 2007. His debut Warner Bros. single "Say Yeah" reached number 25 on the Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 music chart and number 20 on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks. The song samples "Better Off Alone" by Alice Deejay. Khalifa's vocals from "Say Yeah" appear near the end of Pittsburgh mash up producer Girl Talk's 2008 album, Feed the Animals, over music from Underworld's "Born Slippy", Usher's "Love in This Club", and the Cure's "In Between Days".^[12] Khalifa appeared with The Game, David Banner and Play-n-Skillz at U92's Summer Jam at the USANA Amphitheatre in West Valley City, Utah on August 2, 2008.^[13] Khalifa released the mixtapes Star Power in September 2008, and Flight School in April 2009 on Rostrum Records.

Khalifa parted ways with Warner Bros. Records in July 2009 after numerous delays in releasing his planned debut album for the label, First Flight. Khalifa stated to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that, "I learned a lot during my time there and matured as an artist during the process. I'm happy to be moving on with all of my material and having the chance to be in control of my next moves".^[14] Khalifa appeared with Girl Talk, Modey Lemon, Donora, Grand Buffet, and Don Caballero at the Amphitheatre at Station Square in Pittsburgh on July 31, 2009, where he announced that his relationship with Warner Bros. was over.^[15]

Wiz Khalifa performing at Columbia University in New York City in April 2010.

[edit] 2009–10: Deal or No Deal

Continuing his association with Rostrum Records, Khalifa released the single "Teach U to Fly", and the mixtape How Fly, a collaboration with New Orleans rapper Curren$y, on August 9, 2009.^[14] Khalifa introduced a more melodic style on the mixtape, alternating between singing and rapping. He opened for Wu-Tang Clan member U-God at the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon in New York City.^[16] Khalifa released the mixtape Burn After Rolling on November 2, 2009, where he raps over familiar beats from other artists, including the songs "If I Were A Boy" and "Diva" by Beyoncé, "Walking on a Dream" by Empire of the Sun, "Luchini AKA This Is It" by Camp Lo, and "Best I Ever Had" by Drake.^[17] Khalifa released his second album, Deal or No Deal, on November 24, 2009.^[18]

Khalifa performed at Emo's in Austin, Texas in March 2010 as part of the 2010 South by Southwest Music Festival.^[19] He appeared on the cover of XXL magazine that same month, for the magazine's annual list of Top 10 Freshman, which included Donnis, J. Cole, Pill, Freddie Gibbs, and Fashawn. Wiz Khalifa was named 2010 "Rookie Of The Year" by "The Source", with alongside Rick Ross, "The Man Of The Year".^[20] He toured with rapper Yelawolf on a 20-date tour, the Deal Or No Deal Tour.^[21] Khalifa released the free mixtape Kush and Orange Juice for download on April 14, 2010. Due to Khalifa's devoted grassroots fan base, the mixtape became the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter with the hash tag #kushandorangejuice, and "Kush and Orange Juice download” ranked No. 1 on Google’s hot search trends.^[22]