Wiz Khalifa has been cast as funk legend George Clinton in Spinning Gold, an upcoming biopic about Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart. As Deadline reports, the film will focus on the rise of Bogart’s labels, Casablanca and Buddah Records, throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s. In the latter decade, Casablanca put out records by the iconic psych-soul collective Parliament, which Clinton fronted.
The Spinning Gold cast will also feature Jeremy Jordan as Bogart, Tayla Parx as Donna Summer, Ledisi as Gladys Knight, and Lyndsy Fonseca as music manager Joyce Biawitz. Other supporting actors include Jason Derulo, Jay Pharaoh, Jason Isaacs, Peyton List, and Alex Gaskarth.
A film like this requires a top-tier soundtrack, and this is already shaping up to be a good one. The Spinning Gold cast will reportedly re-record some classic tunes, including Parliament’s “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)”, the Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing”, Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me”, KISS’ “Rock and Roll All Nite”, and the Village People’s “YMCA”. Hopefully, this means we’ll get to hear Khalifa’s funky side. Production for Spinning Gold is under way now.
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Believe it or not, Spinning Gold isn’t Khalifa’s first acting gig. In 2019, the rapper played a supporting role in Apple TV+’s biography series Dickinson, about the life of writer Emily Dickinson. He also voiced himself in a 2016 episode of BoJack Horseman, and earlier this year he competed in season five of Fox’s The Masked Singer. His last studio album, Rolling Papers 2, came out in 2018. As for Clinton, he featured on Public Enemy’s latest album What Are You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?, which arrived last September.
