In late July, the kush lover was courted by Rick Ross to join his Maybach Music label. Rawse even went as far as sharing his plea during a taping of MTV's RapFix Live. When Khalifa caught the message he was surprised yet appreciative. “When I woke up and went to Twitter I saw a bunch of people talking about it and was like ‘What the hell?’ So I went on the blogs and saw his [video],” he says. “then Ross ended up calling me [the same day] to say it himself.”
Though the convo Khalifa describes as cool and chill concluded with a respectful decline, the Pittsburgh native admits that even if his deal with Atlantic were nonexistent, he still would’ve passed on Ross’ offer. “I would’ve kept doing what I was doing till I found something huge [outside of Maybach Music]. I’m all about standing behind my own brand instead of putting myself up under somebody else’s,” he explains. “[Success] might take a little bit longer and take more work, but in the end it pays off because I can stand right up there with my peers and have respect.”
This month Khalifa was also courted by Drake via UStream to join his Lightdreams and Nightmares tour featuring the Clipse. Khalif turned down Drizzy as well due to his coming Waken Baken tour. “I never really had too many cosigns…or no one let me know that I was on their radar, so for me, all of this is cool and lets me know that I need to keep doing what I’m doing,” he says. But I’m not too focused on that. I don’t do what I do just to get recognition from everybody. That’s just extra to me.”
Khalifa recently performed at this year's Rock The Bells in Los Angeles and released his critically-aclaimed mixtape, Kush and Orange Juice in April. —Tracy Garraud
total respect for the young ganja smoker
