DJ Khaled

Khaled Mohammed Khaled (; Arabic: خالد محمد خالد; born November 26, 1975), known professionally as DJ Khaled, is an American disc jockey, record producer, and record executive. Originally a Miami-based radio hype man, Khaled has become known for his extensive curation of high-profile music industry artists and producers to record singles or albums. His distinctions are his booming voice presence, “motivational” abstractions, and numerous catchphrases. While his musical contribution is often questioned, Khaled’s role has been described as “organization, direction, [and] promotion”.Khaled was born in New Orleans to Palestinian immigrant parents. He first gained recognition as a radio host in the 1990s for the radio station 99 Jamz, and translated his popularity by working with Fat Joe’s hip hop collective Terror Squad as a DJ for their live performances. After gaining production credits on the group’s material, Khaled independently released his debut album, Listennn… the Album in 2006. His second album, We the Best (2007) spawned the hit single “I’m So Hood” (featuring T-Pain, Trick Daddy, Rick Ross and Plies). His two subsequent releases — We Global (2008) and Victory (2010) — charted within the top ten of the Billboard 200, with the latter containing the triple platinum-certified single “All I Do Is Win” (featuring T-Pain, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross).

His fifth studio album, We the Best Forever (2011) saw continued commercial success, and helped bring Khaled to mainstream prominence as it contained the single “I’m on One” (featuring Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne), which became his first Billboard Hot 100 top ten hit. His following three albums—Kiss the Ring (2012), Suffering from Success (2013), and I Changed a Lot (2015)—were released to moderate critical and commercial reception. In 2015 and 2016, Khaled gained wider recognition as a media personality and Internet meme due to his activity on social media. This foresaw the release of his ninth studio album Major Key (2016), which was met with further critical and commercial success as it debuted atop the Billboard 200 and yielded his first Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album.

His tenth album, Grateful (2017) became his second consecutive number-one album and was preceded by his most successful singles to date: “I’m the One” (featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne) and “Wild Thoughts” (featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller), which peaked at numbers one and two respectively on the Billboard Hot 100. His eleventh album, Father of Asahd (2019) contained the song “Higher” (featuring Nipsey Hussle and John Legend), which won Best Rap/Sung Performance at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards; Khaled’s first Grammy Award win. He released his eponymous twelfth album in 2021, which also peaked the Billboard 200, likewise with his thirteenth album, God Did the following year.

Outside of music, Khaled has gained success as a writer, with his book The Keys featuring on the New York Times Best Seller list. He has also performed as an actor for the films Spies in Disguise (2019) and Bad Boys for Life (2020). His record label, We the Best Music Group has released his projects since its formation in 2008, while Khaled signed other artists to the imprint including Ace Hood, Kent Jones, Mavado, Flipp Dinero, and Vado, among others.

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