See You Again – Wiz Khalifa Ft

Just a few months ago, Charlie Puth was a mostly unknown 23-year-quondam vocalizer from Rumson, N.J., waiting for his large break. But on this sunny afternoon in Manhattan, he's fresh off rehearsing for his Saturday Night Live debut, unwinding in a ii-flooring penthouse suite at the ritzy Gansevoort Park Artery hotel, and turning downward weed from none other than Wiz Khalifa.

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"Want some?" asks the rapper, proffering an expertly rolled edgeless.

"I really wish I could smoke, just I can't," says Puth. "My voice…"

"Merely stand in the room with me and it'll happen at some point," replies Khalifa. (Puth somewhen partakes.)

Wiz Khalifa & Charlie Puth: The Billboard Shoot

The unlikely pair, who simply met two months ago, rehearsing for their March sixteen Tonight Show appearance, have every correct to gloat: Khalifa's "See You Again" (featuring Puth) is topping the Billboard Hot 100 for a 4th calendar week, abruptly ending the fourteen-week streak of Marker Ronson and Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk!" and selling 1.7 million copies in the Usa, co-ordinate to Nielsen Music. The song scores the last scene of Furious 7 — the blockbuster film that has grossed $1.4 billion worldwide (according to Box Office Mojo) since its March premiere — and launched its soundtrack, released March 17 past Atlantic, to No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It too has made an overnight star of Puth, who boasts a Sam Smith-like song range, piano skills honed at Berklee College of Music and teen-idol looks with one noticeable twist — a big scar on his correct eyebrow, the result of a babyhood dog bite. "Nosotros brought the ability ballad dorsum," says Puth of "See You Once again." "Information technology's a large, uplifting song anyone can connect to."

As for Khalifa, 27, "Run across You Over again" is his second surprise No. 1 after 2011's "Black & Yellowish," which many had causeless would be his commercial pinnacle. "It was an opportunity to do something I wouldn't normally do on my ain," says Khalifa. "It feels dandy to be office of a song that has a skillful bulletin."

Started From the Lesser: Wiz Khalifa's 'See You lot Again' & Other No. 1s That Debuted at No. 100

The inspiration behind that message is tragedy. "See You lot Once more" is a tribute to Fast & Furious franchise star Paul Walker, who died in a car accident in 2013. When product on Furious 7, which was being filmed at the time, started up again after a six-calendar month hiatus, director James Wan and his team came up with a new ending for the moving-picture show equally tribute: Piecing together CGI, shots of body doubles and clips from old films, the closing scene features Walker exchanging final words with co-star Vin Diesel fuel and driving off into the dusk. Only 1 thing was missing: the right vocal to accompany it. Mike Knobloch, president of picture, music and publishing at Universal Pictures, who had been involved with the franchise since 2011's Fast Five, says the sequence needed music that could capture "the human level" of the subject field and strike the right balance. "Nosotros wanted to recognize and celebrate Paul. Nosotros couldn't have people leaving the theater pitiful."

Puth — who first broke into the biz after his YouTube cover of Adele's "Someone Like Y'all" landed him a bargain with Ellen DeGeneres' now-defunct eleveneleven label in 2011 — institute out virtually the Furious filmmakers' need through his publisher, Artist Publishing Group. The day after the singer moved to Los Angeles in July 2022 to revamp his stalled career, Puth wrote, co-produced and sang what would become "Come across Y'all Again" in a session at Warner Music's Burbank studios with co-producer Justin "DJ Frank East" Franks. Though Puth had never met Walker, he says he "felt an energy" in the room and started choking up 10 minutes into the session. "I had experienced a loss very similar to Paul, where a friend passed away in a car blow. The offset words out of my mouth were, 'It's been a long solar day,' " recalls Puth, singing the chorus' opening bar. He looked at Franks, and they hugged each other. "What did nosotros just make?" Puth recalls saying in shock.

Mike Caren, Warner Music Grouping's worldwide head of A&R, deputed more than 100 writers and producers to pen music for the soundtrack, but says the project only felt complete when he heard Puth's chorus. "We were looking for melody, lyrics, beats and musicality, and 'Encounter Yous Again' had all those things in spades," says Caren, who signed Puth to APG before long thereafter.

Wiz Khalifa Tops Hot 100, T-Wayne Whips Into Top 10

Atlantic signee Khalifa, whose 2013 Fast & Furious half dozen unmarried "We Own Information technology" reached No. xvi on the Hot 100, was then enlisted, partly for his history with the franchise. Like Puth, Khalifa never met Walker, but he connected to the song and recorded verses in friend Snoop Dogg's 50.A. habitation studio. "I loved Charlie's voice and the message," he says. "I've lost a lot of people, so I just channeled that energy." Adds Kevin Weaver, Atlantic's president of film and idiot box, "He cut these amazing verses about family and brotherhood and final rides – all these things that were so important to the film."

Wiz Khalifa Earns First No. 1 Album On Billboard 200

Though he's all-time-known for advised stoner-party anthems similar 2014'due south "Nosotros Dem Boyz," Khalifa seems to be embracing this softer side — after all, he's a family man now. Since the nascency of his son Sebastian in 2013, Khalifa has weathered a very public (and messy) divorce and custody battle with wife Amber Rose. In March, TMZ reported that Khalifa sent Rose "See You Again" — which features him rapping, "How could we not talk well-nigh family when family unit'due south all that we got?" — and that the song prompted Rose to tearfully attain out to him and concur to co-parent Sebastian. Khalifa has never confirmed that report, and declined to answer to Billboard'southward questions nigh Rose — who's now reportedly dating rapper Auto Gun Kelly — but says his life is "totally different" at present. "I'1000 all about family unit," says Khalifa. "When it comes down to it, that's all that you take. My main focus is on my human relationship with my son, my boogie-boo."

In between, Khalifa is as well focused on a summer bout with Fall Out Boy and a new anthology, which he vows will feature a new collaboration with his new labelmate: Puth, who released his debut EP, Some Kind of Honey, May ane on Atlantic.

"I'ma put Charlie on my album," says Khalifa. "I want to get him to sing about marijuana."

"I'll sing information technology in a sweet falsetto though," replies Puth. "It sounds like your next single to me!"

This story originally appeared in the May sixteen consequence of Billboard.

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Source: https://www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip-hop/wiz-khalifa-charlie-puth-see-you-again-furious-7-paul-walker-6560886/