Wiz Khalifa’s new album Cool arrives on November 13 as his first release through 10K Projects, a Warner Music Group label, and he made it with the Pittsburgh producers who were there before “Black and Yellow” topped the US singles chart.
The production list reads like a reunion, with Big Jerm, Kenny Wright, Ricky P and Sledgren joining E.Dan and his I.D. Labs team. E.Dan owns I.D. Labs, the Pittsburgh studio where a 15-year-old Khalifa recorded regularly and later worked as an intern in exchange for free studio time. On joining 10K Projects, Khalifa kept his statement short: “It’s good to be home!”
Back inside the Warner family
The “home” in that quote is Warner. According to the label announcement, Khalifa had a brief signing with Warner Records at 18 and moved to Atlantic Records at 22 for the run that produced his biggest hits. 10K Projects is now led by Marsha St. Hubert, his former project manager and a close friend, which the label says made the move a reunion as much as a deal.
The rollout started in September with “Yiccen,” which the label calls his biggest solo single debut of the past 52 weeks. “The Calm” followed in late October. Six writers share credit on it: Khalifa, Jermal J Harper, Mackenzie Stotts, Edward Murray, Kenneth Wright and Eric Dan. Khalifa co-produced it with Dan, Wright, Ricky P and Sledgren.
A year of releases, by the count
Cool caps an unusually busy 2026. Earlier this year he put out Khaotic and Girls Love Horses, split the Roofless Records for Drop Tops series with longtime partner Curren$y, and shared Blog Era Boyz with Machine Gun Kelly. That makes Cool at least the fifth distinct release with his name on it this year, counting the Curren$y series once, and it lands after he spent the summer on the North American leg of Machine Gun Kelly’s Lost Americana Tour.
The label used the announcement to update his certification tally. Twelve new RIAA plaques are on the list, among them:
- The Charlie Puth duet “See You Again” has climbed to 16-times platinum.
- Two more songs, “Black & Yellow” and the Snoop Dogg collaboration “Young, Wild & Free,” are now diamond.
- “Sucker for Pain,” shared with Lil Wayne and Imagine Dragons, sits at six-times platinum.
- Two early hits, “Roll Up” and “Work Hard, Play Hard,” have each gone four-times platinum.
- Rolling Papers 2 and the Snoop Dogg team-up Mac & Devin Go to High School are both platinum albums.
By the label’s count, his career now stands above 40 billion streams, with 30 million records sold.
Pittsburgh roots
Born Cameron Jibril Thomaz in Minot, North Dakota, in 1987, Khalifa grew up partly overseas in a military family before settling in Pittsburgh around 1996. “Black and Yellow,” named for the city’s colors, reached No. 1 on the US singles chart and led into Rolling Papers, which opened at No. 2 in 2011 with 197,000 copies. Pittsburgh’s city council named December 12, 2012, Wiz Khalifa Day. Bringing E.Dan and I.D. Labs back for Cool closes a loop that began in that studio more than two decades ago.
His long partnership with Snoop Dogg runs through our coverage of Snoop Dogg’s Tha Doggfather turning 30, and more album news sits in our Entertainment section. Cool is out now through 10K Projects.
Further reading
Image: Bill Ebbesen, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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