About Wiz Khalifa With a series of hits that bundled gangster rhymes, weed talk, pop hooks, and slick production, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania rapper Wiz Khalifa went from breakthrough single ('Black and Yellow') to feature film star (Mac and Devin Go to High School) in the short span of two years. Along the way there were revered mixtapes, sports anthems, a friendship with West Coast legend Snoop Dogg, the proliferation of his crew referencing Taylor Gang or Die T-shirts, and a friendship with the late actor Paul Walker that inspired the massive hit 'See You Again.' A military brat, Khalifa, whose real name is Cameron Thomaz, was born in 1987 in Minot, North Dakota. After his parents divorced when he was three, he lived in various places and military bases around the world. His first attempt at committing lyrics to paper was around age nine, and at 12 he was already recording and producing his own records in his father's Oklahoma studio. Settling in Pittsburgh during his high school years, Khalifa laid down the groundwork for a solo career and kept busy recording music in a local studio, I.D.

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He stood out among the studio's regulars, prompting the I.D. Labs' staff to offer him free beats and recording time, plus bringing him to the attention of Benjy Grinberg, a former executive assistant to L.A. Reid at Arista Records who had started up a new independent label, Rostrum Records. Signed to Rostrum, Khalifa built a buzz in Pittsburgh with a few singles, but he began to draw ears nationally during his senior year in high school when his first mixtape, Prince of the City: Welcome to Pistolvania, dropped in early 2006. With the release of his independent full-length debut, Show and Prove, later that year, major publications featured profiles on the young rapper.

In summer 2007, Khalifa and Rostrum hopped on board with Warner and Khalifa cut his first major-label single, 'Young'n on His Grind.' The follow-up, 'Say Yeah,' climbed into the Top 20 of Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks that same year, but the relationship between Warner Bros. Genesis 12 3 explained.

And Khalifa was taking a turn for the worse. Unable to come to an agreement on his debut album for the label, the rapper announced he was leaving Warner in 2009 and returning to Rostrum for the album Deal or No Deal. The next year began with Khalifa appearing on the cover of XXL as one of the magazine’s Top Ten Freshmen, while The Source named him Rookie of the Year.