DJ Khaled Talks Snapchat Stardom

The hip-hop producer turned Snapchat self-help sensation.

- Allison P. Davis

I hear it before I even poke my head through the door frame: the familiar, percussive, triumphant declaration of self that I’ve heard at the beginning of several popular radio friendly rap songs in the past decade, like “All I Do Is Win” and “We Takin’ Over.” The trademark “DJ Khaaaled” incantation is sort of what the rap personality and producer DJ Khaled is best known for—or at least it was until he joined Snapchat four months ago. It’s the equivalent of blowing an air horn at the beginning of a game or, in this case, at the start of a video, like the teaser he’s filming with Nas in a blunty-smelling bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

DJ Khaled—real name: Khaled Khaled, and perhaps the most famous living Palestinian-American besides former governor John Sununu and the Hadid brood—is leaning back in an armchair, wearing a big chain and low-slung dark-wash jeans, with a We the Best hoodie from his new line of Khaled merchandise. He and Nas have just finished up an hours-long recording session for the second episode of We the Best Radio, Khaled’s show for Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio. Khaled has big plans for his show. Diddy, for instance, will be interviewed in a Jacuzzi, Rick Ross in a Rolls-Royce. (It’s audio, but Khaled believes the setting matters.) Since Nas is one of Khaled’s idols, though, he wanted full “Oprah vibes.” Hence the semi-formal couch interview and all the signifiers of the good life: crystal glasses of Henny, a fat cigar smoking in the ashtray, and some fresh purple flowers—his “angels,” as Khaled calls blooms on the regular Snapchat tours he gives of his garden.