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Cameron Jibril Thomaz, better known by the stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper.

Born 8^th September 1987 in Minot, North Dakota, Thomaz moved around a lot as a child, living in Germany, England and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA to attend high school. He took an interest in rap and hip hop music from a young age and chose his stage name in his early teens – choosing ‘Wiz’ as a shortening of ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Khalifa’ because it’s an Arabic word meaning successor. He released his first mixtape Prince of the City: Welcome to Pistolvania when he was eighteen, and this led to a deal to record his first full-length studio album with Rostrum Records.

Show and Prove was released in September 2006. It sold over 10,000 copies, produced the single Pittsburgh Sound (All in My Blood) and led to Rolling Stone magazine rating the rapper as an ‘artist to watch’ over the next few years. Khalifa signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2007 and released two more mixtapes that year: Grow Season and Prince of the City 2. The latter included the single Say Yeah, which reached number twenty on the US Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart. He released a further two mixtapes over the next year – Star Power and Flight School – before parting ways with Warner Bros. in early 2009.

Following the release of his sixth and seventh mixtapes How Fly (ft. Curren$y) and Burn After Rolling in 2009, along with the single Teach U to Fly, Khalifa put the final touches on his second studio album. Released on 24^th November, Deal or No Deal reached number 25 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and produced two hit singles: This Plane and Red Carpet (Like A Movie).

Wiz Khalifa released his eighth official mixtape Kush and Orange Juice in April 2010.

When Drake went public with his hopes of persuading Wiz Khalifa to join him on his upcoming Light Dreams and Nightmares Tour, everyone in the hip hop world expected the young rapper to jump at the chance. So it was a big surprise when Khalifa came back with a polite ‘thanks, but no thanks.’

The 22-year-old rapper explained that he was flattered by the offer, but wants to focus on his solo commitments for now – including his own upcoming Waken Baken Tour. “Just the fact of me being on his radar is tight, to me,” he said. “But I think to keep me poppin’ and keep me relevant I gotta stay buildin’ on top of what I’m doin’ and what I been doin’, I gotta keep focusin’ on what it is.”

Drake, who has scored hits with singles like Best I Ever Had, Successful, Every Girl (with Lil Wayne), Over, Find Your Love and Miss Me, says the tour will still go ahead as planned, but hasn’t ruled out getting in another rap support act. It starts on 21^st September at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida.