With the success of his current single "Say Yeah" Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa is preparing his first major label release via Warner Bros. Records later this year. In this SOHH exclusive the young MC discusses his hit single, why he chose to sign with Warner Bros and what we can expect from his new album.

After initially being signed to a single deal with Warner since last year, the label just recently announced that they'd signed the 20-year-old Khalifa to a full album deal.

"It just officially went through last week," Wiz told SOHH. "We've been negotiating it for a minute and it's been official since a couple days ago so I'm definitely really excited about that."

Signed to Warner via his Pittsburgh independent label home Rostrum Records, Khalifa says the decision to go with a major was fairly simple.

"There's more that we can do with a major label," Khalifa says. "We did what we could do as far as building a buzz and getting the respect of the industry as an independent label, but we definitely need them major label dollars and marketing to make me and Rostrum as big as we can be. Plus we are real comfortable with Warner, as far as all the other labels, that's the one we felt most comfortable with."

Wiz Khalifa's first single "Say Yeah," currently sits at #27 on Billboard's Rhythmic Top 40 Charts. Thanks to the Alice Deejay sample it employs, the song is far from a typical track, but Wiz says he was always confident it would catch on.

"I wasn't reluctant at all because of how diverse I am," Wiz says of the decision to sample electro-hit "Better Off Alone." "I enjoy all types of music. I'm a young artist so when 'Better Off Alone' came out I was pretty young so I didn't know much about it, but I knew the beat was pretty infectious, every time it came on I liked it. So when my producer played it for me this time around, it was almost a no brainer. I loved it so much when I was little, I knew everybody, everywhere was gonna love it, so we had to do it."

Wiz has already begun work on his upcoming album, citing Snoop Dogg producer Terrance Martin, The Runners, DJ Toomp and Pittsburgh favorites Sledgren, Juliano and E-Dan as likely beatmakers for the project. While a title and release date haven't been settled, Khalifa expects to release the album by Fall 2008.