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Wiz Khalifa
Biography
Possessing a keenness that belied his age, Pittsburgh, PA, rap lyricist Wiz Khalifa came to be a rising star over the course of the late 2000s based on his young bravado and hardcore yet charismatic execution of rhymes. Consciously building up his city's hip-hop reputation, he sought out to create a sound that was uniquely Pittsburgh, relying on his East Coast (Jay-Z, Wu-Tang Clan), Southern (Three 6 Mafia), and other (Bone Thugs-N-Harmony) hip-hop influences. A military brat, Khalifa, whose real name is Cameron Thomaz, was born in 1987 in Minot, ND. After his parents divorced when he was about age three, he lived in various places and military bases around the world before settling in Pittsburgh. He was constantly writing during that time and soaked up a great deal of knowledge from his globetrotting experiences. His first attempt at committing lyrics to paper happened around age nine, and at 12 he was already recording and producing his own records in his father's Oklahoma studio.

As soon as he returned to Pittsburgh, Khalifa laid down the groundwork to begin a solo career and kept busy recording music in a local studio, called I.D. Labs, in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of the city.