It’s Friday in Los Angeles, and somebody in Wiz Khalifa’s house is ready to party. Giddy squeals unfurl, punctuated here and there by a high-pitched giggle. The rapper is trying to stay focused on our phone conversation, but whoever’s bopping around his house has a case of "The Fridays" and clearly wants to share it with Wiz.
Just a few years ago, this scenario would’ve sparked a gossipy guessing game of what model or actress or singer—or all three, all at once—was shacking up with one of the most famous rappers in the world. But these days, a different sort of playmate has captured Wiz’s heart —his four-year-old son Sebastian, aka “Bash,” who’s currently getting the weekend started with his dad.
“I just love the shit out of my kid. The most recent tattoo I got was a pumpkin on my face. My son loves Halloween and pumpkins and I asked him what tattoo he wanted me to get and that was it. Anything for my boy,” the 29-year-old rapper says, bursting into his big trademark, honking bray of a laugh. “I put all of my time and energy into him. I’ve always been a very focused and determined person, but now I have something totally different to be focused and determined about.”
If anyone can afford to shift his attention away from his career a bit, it’s Wiz Khalifa. Starting with a slew of mixtapes released in the 2000s, the Pittsburgh native blazed a new path in rap and did so while, well, blazed. Dangling a never-ending joint from his fingers, he and his buddy from New Orleans, Curren$y, pioneered a novel approach to becoming a star in the age of the unstable music industry—touring and tweeting. Meanwhile, he also helped usher in a new, melodic style that softened the edges of rap by marrying traditional rhyming with singsong hooks. Together, the twinned strategies made Khalifa a very wealthy man: Last year he secured the No. 5 spot on Forbes's annual “Cash Kings” list with a net worth of $24 million.
