Every artist expects to be criticized over their work at some point but Wiz Khalifa certainly wasn't expecting fans to be so negative when he unveiled the cover art for his upcoming album O.N.I.F.C. Wiz stuck by the cover on Twitter when he first debuted it, and in an interview with Karen Civil he says that any reaction is a good reaction.
"I don't know what [the response] is gonna be. I do what I feel, and then people react to it," Wiz said during his interview. "When [the cover] got its reaction, it was crazy to me 'cause I thought people was gonna love it. I thought they would be like, 'Yo, this is the craziest cover, this is the best sh-- I've ever seen in my life'. When I sat down and thought about it, I was like, 'Well, whether they're talking about how bad it is or how good it is, they're talking about it,' and that becomes the thing for the day, week, month, however long it lasts. It's a good thing, and I believe in it, so that's what's most important."
The cover drew immediate comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, and many people on Twitter accused Wiz of trying to copy the iconic singer, but he clarified that Hendrix wasn't his only inspiration. "[Jimi Hendrix] is definitely an influence, but it's not just [that]," he said. "Jimi Hendrix is a great person, I love Jimi, but that whole era of music...they all look like that. When you look back at that time and the Vietnam days... that's what people looked like at that time. Me having an afro and me wearing a bandanna around my head and people think now I look like Jimi Hendrix, it doesn't mean I'm trying to be Jimi. Yeah, I love Jimi, but that's not really exactly who I'm trying to be."
