Wiz Khalifa has respectfully declined a Drake tour invitation in favor of headlining his very own Waken Baken tour.
Khalifa has had a breakout 2010 punctuated by his popular mixtape Kush X OJ and being voted MTV’s Breakthrough artist of the year.
While these accolades have put him in serious demand for features and collaborations, Khalifa believes his own tour does more for building his brand than accompanying Drake’s Light Dreams & Nightmares tour as an opening act.
“No disrespect to [Drake] or anybody else who might wanna see me do some more collaborative things, but to keep building and keep my brand as strong as what it is, I gotta keep focusing on what it is,” Khalifa explained to XXL magazine. “This is my first tour that I got coming up, the Waken Baken Tour. I gotta at least kick that off and make that what it is so we can do 10 more.”
The Clipse and Bun B have signed on as opening acts for Drake’s tour. On Khalifa’s end, the Waken Baken tour will feature Yelawolf and Big K.R.I.T. This will be the Pittsburgh emcee’s first national headline tour, and he hopes it builds his name to a position where he can be Drake’s equal business-wise.
“I was looking on the Internet and [saw] that [Drake] made $10 million this year,” Khalifa cited. “So maybe when I make $10 million, then we can tour. We can do like some special dates or some surprise guest-type thing, but I need 10 mil too, Drake.”
Wiz Khalifa’s Waken Baken Tour kicks off September 16 in Philadelphia at the Trocadero Theatre. Drake’s Light Dreams & Nightmares run begins September 20 in Miami at the James L. Knight Center.
**************************************
This is a risky move by, but its one that I respect and reminds me of a similar situation back in the late 90s.
In 1997 Jay-Z joined Diddy’s star-studded No Way Out tour. Feeling his work was being lost the shuffle amongst the vast array of Bad Boy artists on the bill (Faith, Black Rob, Total, The Lox etc.), Jay left before the tour’s completion.
But two years later, Jay ended up headlining his own all-star event with the Hard Knock Life tour, which featured a combination of Roc-a-fella and Def Jam artists.
Wiz Khalifa is an artist that’s emerged in a time where the “record business” is dead, but the “music business” is still thriving for those with entrepreneurial savvy. The difference is the record business deals with the money made directly from the sales of CDs, MP3s etc. The music business is all the income streams that come from music, such as endorsements, tour money, merchandising etc. For example Khalifa’s Kush X OJ hasn’t sold a single copy, but it’s given him the opportunity to sell out shows around the country and perform at festivals with thousands of people.
In this case, I think Khalifa feels opening for Drake does more for Drake’s brand than it does for himself. Will it pay off? That remains to be seen, but it’s very good to see young emcees paying as much attention to their business as they do their art.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 