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Music

Wiz Khalifa

WIZ KHALIFA with A$AP ROCKY, B.O.B, TRINIDAD JAME$, JOEY BADA$$ and many others at the Molson Amphitheatre (909 Lake Shore West), Saturday (August 10), doors 5 pm, all ages. $20-$59.50. TM.


Everything is easy when you’re Wiz Khalifa. Even fatherhood.

“Parenting is not as serious as everybody makes it out to be,” he says, coughing a cloud of marijuana.

Khalifa and his partner, the model Amber Rose, welcomed their first child, Sebastian, aka The Bash, in February. Apparently, he takes after his daddy. “He’s the most chill baby in the world.”

Rose and The Bash are back home in Los Angeles, while Khalifa is smoking up a makeshift greenroom behind Festival d’Été’s massive Plaines d’Abraham stage. He is slight, a very young-looking 25 and generous with shots of gin.

He just performed for tens of thousands of festival goers, but that, too, is a piece of cake. “It’s not difficult at all. I just give out the same energy for everybody, because if you look at the back they’re rocking as hard as the people in the front. It’s motivating. It keeps you going.”

It’s true. As a performer, Khalifa is surprisingly infectious. Those chilled-out vibes get turned up onstage when he goes into celebration mode.

Fittingly, his four studio albums are full of feel-good party tracks – see Black And Yellow from 2011’s Rolling Papers and Work Hard Play Hard from last year’s O.N.I.F.C. His 2011 collab with Snoop Lion (né Dogg), Young Wild & Free, was possibly the Blurred Lines of its time in terms of airplay.

Fifth album Blacc Hollywood (Warner Canada) is due later this year. His approach, he says, differs with every project.

“I just go off what’s inspiring me at the moment. Right now I’m listening to everything – I’ve been going to the clubs a lot, so I’m inspired by club music, by the young energy,” he says, citing Migos, the A$AP movement (who join him on the tour that brings him to Toronto) and J.Cole.

The goal for his Toronto show, and for life, he says, is fun. Full stop. So has he always been this, you know, young, wild and free?

“Yeah. Ever since I was a baby. I’ve been a Ninja Turtle, man. Donatello.”

Whether he means because Donatello is one of the more chilled-out turtles or because he’s a genius inventor is unclear. (Though, like Don, Khalifa is ever so slightly aloof and shy.)

So, we’ll give it to him. He’s Donatello. He’s also one of only three people who can out-smoke Snoop Lion (according to Snoop) and the only man Rose’s ex-boyfriend Kanye West respects (according to West’s lyrics in Way Too Cold). Three days after the Quebec City show, he married Amber Rose.

It’s good to be Wiz.

Interview Clips

Wiz Khalifa on his musical process and influences:

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Wiz Khalifa on support from his peers:

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julial@nowtoronto.com | @julialeconte

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