In June of 2007, Wiz Khalifa made history for the city of Pittsburgh by signing a major record deal with Warner Bros. Records. Led by his Rostrum Records team, Wiz burst into the national hip hop spotlight by way of a riveting grassroots movement. Rolling Stone magazine honored Wiz as a New Artist To Watch and his "Pittsburgh Sound" video was selected for the Editors Hot List a few months later. XXLs March 2007 issue featured Wiz in their coveted Show and Prove section. Mass Appeal had Wiz as the lead artist for 2007s Next of Kin. He has been praised by VIBE magazine as an East Coast star in the waiting, while also being featured in their October 2007 issue as a Next artist. Major magazines overseas also took notice of the 19-year old prodigys talent, with features in UKs Hip-Hop Connection and Frances RAP US.
Wiz has also continued to get lots of honors from the online community. AllHipHop.com named Wiz as one of the Best New Artists of 2006. His debut street album Show and Prove was labeled by Okayplayer.com as arguably the best hip hop release of the year." The Prince of Pittsburgh has had his songs regularly placed on popular online sites such as XXLmag.com, AllHipHop.com, Dubcnn.com, and HipHopGame.com.
In early 2007, after bringing home Best Male Artist and Lyrcist Of The Year at the 1st annual Pittsburgh Hip Hop awards, Wiz premiered his worldwide debut video Pittsburgh Sound. It exploded via the Net and in the spring of 2007 FUSE TV debuted it on Cable, eventually being chosen by fans as an "Oven Fresh Keeper" on the channel. In the summer of 2007, he put out a new mixtape, Grow Season, with DJ Green Lantern, performed on the DUB tour, and released a video for Youngin On His Grind that has been featured all over the Internet.
Wiz's massive presence on the Internet has attracted many new fans to his music. In the past year, Wiz Khalifas profile on Myspace.com has exploded, being visited in excess of 3,600,000 times, tracks played over 9,500,000 times, and accumulating over 65,000 "friends" from all over the world.
The year 2008 has brought even more attention to hip hops newest star. Wiz has been performing all over the country, sharing the stage with acts such as Nas, T.I., Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne, T-Pain, The Clipse, Ghostface, and Lupe Fiasco...among others. His single Say Yeah peaked at 28 on the Billboard Rhythmic charts leading to the video being placed into roation on MTV2 and MUN2. It has also received over two million plus hits on Youtube alone. Tastemakers worldwide were fascinated by Wizs brilliant use of Alice Deejay's "Better Off Alone" sample to create the song.
Accolades continued to come in for "Say Yeah" and the Prince of The City 2 mixtape from publications such as Rolling Stone to XXL to The Fader. Now with a follow up single Make It Hot ready to blow nationwide and yet another mixtape entitled Star Power set to drop this summer, Wiz is officially ready to be the new face of rap. Stay tuned for the latest
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