About Wiz
Pittsburgh has long been searching for its first major Hip Hop star. Some have flirted with success, while others have floundered in the masses. At the age of 19, Wiz Khalifa has developed into the prodigy that Pittsburgh has been looking for, and he plans to represent his city to the fullest.
Born Cameron Thomaz in North Dakota in 1987 to a mother and father serving in the military, Wiz moved to Pittsburgh at the age of 2. Over the next thirteen years, he would move between Pittsburgh and South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Germany, Japan, and England as his parents were reassigned to different posts.
In October of 1990, Wiz was separated from his mother, who left him in the hands of her sister while she served in Operation Desert Storm. During his travels, Wiz was forced to mature quicker than his peers. He was constantly faced with new surroundings, schools, and friends, making it difficult to become attached to anyone outside family. Nomadic life, though, gave Wiz an opportunity to broaden his mind and offered many experiences from which to draw inspiration. He began to perceive the world differently than most kids and this motivated him to write his thoughts down every day. These thoughts would become the foundation for his future recordings.
By the age of 14, with a few songs under his belt, Wiz was drawing comparisons with his commanding voice and witty wordplay. While artists such as Jay-Z, Snoop, Cam’ron, and the Notorious B.I.G. have influenced him, Wiz was determined to create his own identity that would, one day, be loved and revered by fans.
Ready to take the next step, Wiz began his search for a new recording studio in Pittsburgh. He found ID LABS, where owner Eric Dan immediately recognized Wiz’s talents. Along with Chad Glick of ID Labs Management, they began to network Wiz to another Pittsburgh native, Benjy Grinberg of Rostrum Records. Benjy realized the raw talent that Wiz possessed, and immediately brought him into the Rostrum family. Rostrum released Show and Prove, as well as 3 other mixtapes, and began their ascent into the National music scene. Not long after, Wiz was inking his first major label contract with Warner Bros. Records.
This year, XXLmag.com ran a feature on Wiz stating that “his buzz has officially started to outgrow the streets.” After rave reviews from his first debut single “Youngin On His Grind,” Wiz premiered his follow up “Say Yeah” on AllHipHop.com.
People usually struggle their whole lives trying to figure out how they can make their mark on this world, but Wiz has known his calling for years and is crafting his future with pen and pad.
About Yelawolf
Gadsden, Alabama, isn’t exactly a hip-hop hotbed, but the small town, just east of Birmingham, might have the ambassador to put it on the map. Yelawolf (born Michael Wayne Atha) has been building quite the buzz with features on Slim Thug’s “I Run” and Juelz Santana’s “Mixin’ My Medicine,” but he’s been grinding for a minute and making a bigger name for himself thanks to his mixtapes, most recently Trunk Music.
Yela was raised in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee by his single mother and was influenced by her musical interests.
“I just picked up a lot of classic-rock, melodic influence from my mom, music that she listened to, like 10,000 Maniacs, Led Zeppelin, REO Speedwagon and Yes,” he said. “She was actually dating a dude who was on tour with Aerosmith during the ‘Walk This Way’ tour who brought me back some of my Adidas T-shirts and [a tape of] ‘Paul Revere.’ Beastie Boys, that was my first taste of hip-hop.”
Yela eventually decided to pursue a career in hip-hop, but he still loved classic rock. “I equally love both, classic rock and hip-hop. I love all music, really, and I really use classic rock a lot,” he said. “I’m heavily influenced by that melodically in my music. I can’t really separate the two.”
Yela said he was also influenced by the grit and grime of the neighborhoods he lived in. For every Lynyrd Skynyrd album, there was a Three 6 Mafia, Skinny Pimp, Outkast or UGK record too. “Where I’m from is like ‘Hustle & Flow’ versus ‘8 Mile.’ It’s that really grimy, box-Chevy, dope-boy, working-class music.”
Before breaking through in music, Yela decided to pursue skateboarding. He moved to Berkeley, California, but he eventually found himself at food drives with homeless people. Amid a slew of skating-related injuries, Wolf decided to focus his efforts on rap. He took to the mixtapes.
Ball of Flames, his tribute to “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” was the first to come out. Talladega is only 20 minutes from his house. Then he dropped his underground gem, Stereo, with DJ Ideal. The mixtape was a hip-hop tribute to classic rock, and it received five cigars in Ozone magazine (the equivalent of Source’s five mics). He followed that up with the EP Arena Rap, which featured a full band, including a fiddle and banjo player. Finally, at the top of the year, came Trunk Music, which showed people he could really rap.
“I felt like people were waiting for me to rap, and I was hungry to do it again,” said Yelawolf, who also said he was taking his time with his debut LP. “We had just been experimenting with the band sound. I just was hungry to rap over 808s and high-hats and really just do some double-time drive records. It was just a passion.”
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