Rapper Wiz Khalifa rolling into Lexington, and he’s bringing friends
Fans are apt to argue which of Wiz Khalifa’s songs or music videos best define the attitude and appeal of the multiplatinum-selling, Grammy-nominated rapper.
A popular choice will undoubtedly be “Black and Yellow,” a homage to the artist’s home base of Pittsburgh that hit the top of pop charts in the fall of 2010, establishing Khalifa has one of hip-hop’s major crossover forces.
My vote, though, goes to something more recent. This time last year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a cunning single called “Still Wiz” surfaced, as did an accompanying video that saw Khalifa hosting a provocative pool party.
On the surface, the song was a celebration – a statement affirming a career that remained hearty a full decade after “Black and Yellow,” and its subsequent album “Rolling Papers,” made him a star. The video’s opening asserts the mood – a shot of the famed “Hollywood” sign overlooking Los Angeles redone with the letters of Khalifa’s name underscored by the rapper’s subtle laughter.
But the tune toughens up quickly into a plain-speaking discourse – a “told you so” saga for anyone, especially those in Khalifa’s own hip-hop orbit, who doubted his celebrity staying power.
“I remember I was young when they hated and doubted me,” the song goes. “Now (I’m) bossed up with my name on the property. And, no, we don’t care what it cost. I start it, you hear the exhaust.”
Like all popular music genres, hip-hop prides itself on its influx of new talent. “Still Wiz” is Khalifa’s proclamation of how far his career has taken him and how his creative drive, a decade into a major record label tenure, hasn’t gone soft.
“I don’t think a lot of people see their lives how I see mine,” Khalifa said in an interview with Melena Ryzik of the New York Times. “You can set it up and plan for however you want it to be and you don’t have to have situations in your life alter who you are. You can still be who you originally were.”
What Khalifa is – and always has been – is an artist capable of maintaining a celebrity status that balances sunny levity with tougher personal reflection.
As to the former, Khalifa has not at all been shy about giving his longtime love of cannabis an entrepreneurial spin. Obviously, the title of “Rolling Papers” was a tip-off. In 2014, he celebrated the release of his fifth album, “Blacc Hollywood,” with a performance in Denver, where recreational marijuana was already legal. Two years later, Khalifa appeared on a cooking show with Martha Stewart and fellow celebratory herbivore Snoop Dogg preparing dishes with, shall we say, a special ingredient.
Khalifa is no novelty act, though. The mood of his more celebratory songs and career moves is regularly tempered by music that enforces a more sobering personal claim on the fame he has achieved.
“I’m in the field for real,” Khalifa asserted in “Fr Fr,” the fourth and final single from 2018’s “Rolling Papers 2” album. “I’m ‘bout my check for real. I’m ‘bout my respect for real.”
Where did the rapper’s creative voyage begin? Curiously, not in Pittsburgh. Though the city has served as a cultural and personal center for much of his career, Khalifa was born Cameron Jibril Thomaz in the perhaps unlikely hip-hop metropolis of Minot, North Dakota. The son of military parents, he lived in Germany, England and Japan as a child before Pittsburgh became home at the age of nine.
Music came to Khalifa quickly in his teens with his first mix tapes surfacing in 2005. He cut assorted singles after signing with Warner Bros. but never released a full album with the label. By the time he signed with Atlantic Records in 2009 (“Black and Yellow” followed a year later), Khalifa was already a prominent chart and club presence. As such, “Rolling Papers,” his major label debut album, hit No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart in its first week of release. A star wasn’t so much born as confirmed and legitimized.
What is next in the chart-topping, cannabis-loving, celebrity-savvy hip-hop world of Wiz Khalifa? How about the movies? The rapper was recently announced as a cast member of “Spinning Gold,” an upcoming film biopic on Neil Bogart, the mastermind behind the famed rock/disco/funk ’70s and ’80s label Casablanca Records. Khalifa will play George Clinton, the chieftain of the funk collective Parliament/Funkadelic. Parliament’s biggest commercial hits came while recording for Casablanca.
“I started really approaching (my career) like, ‘Yo. Boom. I’m here!’ Khalifa told Dan Hyman in an interview for Rolling Stone. “Now it’s like, ‘Welcome, Mr. Sir. How are you doing?’ It’s different, for real, and I love it. It’s cool. I’ve learned how to blend. That’s what it’s about, too: Me gaining knowledge. My style has changed a lot. I dress differently. My jewelry has changed. It all goes together.”
Concert info
Who: Wiz Khalifa, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Chevy Woods
When: 6:30 p.m. July 8
Where: Whitaker Bank Ballpark, 207 Legends Lane.
Tickets: $49-$99 though mpv.tickets.com