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Wiz Khalifa

Wiz Khalifa has it pretty good these days — in fact, you could say the 23-year-old rapper is living the high life. Khalifa has said he smokes up to $10K a month worth of weed, and has the bona fides to prove it: A bust in North Carolina last year turned up about 60 grams of marijuana on Khalifa's "Waken Baken" tour. (Maybe the cops were tipped off by his Twitter message earlier that day: "Smoke outs Greeneville, nc tonight. Fall thru wit ur finest plant life.") Touted as one of rap's leading up-and-comers since his senior year in high school, when the Pittsburgh native broke out of the mixtape circuit with his Show and Prove debut, Khalifa was named the Hottest Breakthrough MC of 2010 by MTV News and Rookie of the Year by The Source. Things really got interesting when Khalifa released a tribute to his hometown football team — although "Black and Yellow" didn't help the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl, it became an unlikely hit on pop radio and inspired Lil Wayne's Cheesehead retort "Green and Yellow." Earlier this year, Khalifa released his Atlantic debut, Rolling Papers, whose synth-heavy songs like "On My Level" (featuring Too $hort) make it easy to wonder if he's ever gone a day in his life without getting twisted. Now co-starring with none other than Snoop Dogg in the upcoming buddy flick High School, Khalifa has a future that's anything but cloudy.
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Chris Gray has been Music Editor for the Houston Press since 2008. He is the proud father of a Beatles-loving toddler named Oliver.
Contact: Chris Gray