Wiz Khalifa paid for studio time as a teenage intern
At 15, Cameron Thomaz was recording regularly at a small Pittsburgh studio called I.D. Labs. Its owner, a local hip-hop veteran known as E. Dan, was so impressed that he offered the teenager an internship, paid in free recording time, and became his early mentor. The kid became Wiz Khalifa.
Minot, North Dakota, is where Thomaz arrived on September 8, 1987, the son of parents who both served in the Air Force. As a military child he lived in Germany, Britain and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh with his mother around 1996, and he was writing and performing his own lyrics before his teens. His stage name blends Wiz, short for wisdom, with Khalifa, an Arabic word for successor, a name his Muslim grandfather gave him. He had it tattooed on his seventeenth birthday.
A contribution to a compilation of new Pittsburgh rappers caught the ear of Benjy Grinberg, head of the local label Rostrum Records, who met the 16-year-old and signed him soon after, beginning a seven-year development. A debut album, Show and Prove, arrived in 2006, and Rolling Stone flagged him as an artist to watch. A deal with Warner Bros. in 2007 produced a minor hit built on a Eurodance sample, but repeated delays to his planned album led him to walk away in July 2009, saying he wanted control over his next moves.
Going independent paid off. After more mixtapes he signed with Atlantic in July 2010, and Black and Yellow, his debut release there, saluting his hometown's sports colours, reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2015 he recorded See You Again with Charlie Puth for the film Furious 7, honouring the late actor Paul Walker. It spent 12 weeks at the top of the Hot 100 and was certified diamond.
He also runs Taylor Gang Entertainment, a label he founded in 2008 that has signed Juicy J and Ty Dolla Sign, and has acted in television shows and animated series.
Source: Wiz Khalifa
