The Fast and the Furious films are the only monoculture in our modern world, the one media property that unites every single demographic. This is likely why Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s Furious 7 theme song “See You Again” currently sits at nearly three billion views on YouTube. Please take that in for a second; approximately half the planet has streamed a rap ballad about Paul Walker because they just love those car movies so much. But there’s another reality where Wiz’s stoner charm was not the foil to Charlie Puth’s radio troubadour hook. We almost got Wale.
The MMG stalwart revealed in a Twitter confessions thing that “See You Again” was apparently passed along to him before Wiz was decided upon as the final main artist (It had been previously reported that 50 Cent and Eminem also declined). His reasoning?
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One one level, this is fine reasoning; it’s an emotional song about death! Not everyone can muster up the fortitude to perform something like that. On the other… dude must really be kicking himself now after missing out on this primo source of royalties. Science (sort of) says that tiny actions create enormous ramifications later and that this is where parallel universes come from. Would the timeline of a Wale-helmed “See You Again” have differed from ours that much? Would it be a utopia? A dystopia? We’ll never know, because Wale may have determined our fates without us knowing. Marvel at the chaos of quantum physics while listening to one of the biggest songs of all time.
Phil is a Noisey staff writer. He’s on Twitter.
