Rap Blog: Wizz Havinn should get used to hating fame

“Leave It In Her” finds Wizz at his most unflappable over an unusually hypnotic beat.

August 13, 2024

A month ago, Tallahassee rapper Wizz Havinn debuted a sleek new song in a “freestyle” for On The Radar Radio, complaining about being recognized in public and the unsolicited opinions of peons. Arriving with a fresh music video last week, “Leave It In Her” is a particularly breezy cut from the Sunshine State up-and-comer. Wizz has come off unbothered and unrushed ever since his 2022 debut, but it seems he’s been this way since childhood: “Mr. Make-it-happen, I'm the one that put food up in the kitchen (I bring food out) / They told me I was crashing not going to school but look I did it (I made it).”

ADVERTISEMENT

Ditching the minor-key melodies that typically frame Wizz’s discography, producer Azrael Beatz laces the track with a buoyant slip of narcotized synth, spacey and hypnotic, though the drums still knock hard plenty hard. And there’s an unassuming complexity to his wordplay here that gels nicely with the instrumental’s slick pulse. Just listen to how Wizz curls the syllables in a line like, “N***a ass funny like Druski, wish he Coulda Been,” or the half-pause splitting, “mobbing through the trenches deep — nun’ but hooligans.”

Florida rap has felt particularly buzzy and resurgent this year, from Bossman Dlow’s superstar breakout to the BLP Kosher interlude on the Camila Cabello album. Wizz Havinn hasn’t reached that level of notoriety yet, but watching him with Dlow, Luh Tyler, Loe Shimmy, and C Stunna in the video for “4 AM at Coffee Zone (Florida Avengers)” earlier this summer, it felt more a question of “when” than “if.” As he gears up to go on tour with Veeze later this fall, a song like “Leave It In Her” has me paying close attention: Wizz Havinn’s big moment could come sooner than you think.

ADVERTISEMENT
Rap Blog: Wizz Havinn should get used to hating fame