(It’s worth noting that some of his biggest tracks were produced by Stargate, benny blanco, and the Bruno Mars team The Smeezingtons-pop producers, not rap ones.) After reaching a pop peak with his 2015 Charlie Puth collaboration, “See You Again,” Khalifa scaled things back, releasing a sequel to Rolling Papers and a breezy collaboration with New Orleans rapper Curren$y ( 2009), followed by The Saga of Wiz Khalifa in 2020. The album received moderate reviews from critics, yet topped the US R&B/Hip Hop Albums and US Rap Albums charts, as well as reaching number two on Billboards.

From the beginning, Khalifa seemed indifferent to genre, mixing hip-hop with hints of club music and the anthemic quality of great pop-a flexibility that made him as likely to show up on a Maroon 5 track as a Chief Keef one. He started releasing mixtapes around 2005, racking up an increasingly high-profile set of features before breaking through with 2011’s Rolling Papers. Or, as he put it on “Black and Yellow,” “Get fly and take trips and that’s that-real rap.”Ī military kid, Khalifa (born Cameron Thomaz in 1987) spent most of his childhood bouncing around before settling in Pittsburgh. From the beginning, there was something low-key and effortless about him, a joie de vivre that made his music-“No Sleep,” “Work Hard, Play Hard,” “Mezmorized”-feel like a party. Some rappers want to take over the world Wiz Khalifa just wants to meet girls, get money, and smoke as much weed as his constitution will allow.

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