The other day, on his Snapchat, DJ Khaled trained his phone camera on his wall of gold and platinum albums and asked, “You think they want me to have all these plaques?”
Here are some other things that, according to DJ Khaled, they don’t want you to do: eat breakfast, eat lunch, be in a Wraith with stars in the roof, have a No. 1 record, be on a Jet Ski doing 360s, have a fresh cut, smile.
But DJ Khaled — the hip-hop Zelig figure who’s orchestrated some of the most anthemic hits of the last decade — is too busy walking the pathway to more success to let naysayers tell him what he can’t do. Every day he films a combination of inspirational talk, outrageous adventures and mundane minutiae of life, a mix that in recent weeks has become social media core curriculum.
Occasionally there is a marriage of artist and medium so perfect it trumps everything that came before: thinkDrake’s ability to anticipate and generate memes, or Rihanna’s early Instagram. .......
But no one has masteredSnapchat —
the outlet where publicly posted pictures and videos live for 24 hours,
then disappear — like DJ Khaled, who has become a social media
celebrity in a way that outpaces his musical fame. (His handle is
@djkhaled305.) His effectiveness and addictiveness in the medium have
elevated him from carnival barker to transcendent public figure. It’s
not clear how many followers DJ Khaled has, but a screen grab of his
Snapchat data he posted suggests that about two million people are
seeing each post.
His
Snapchat is a renewable source of relentless positivity, a kind of
chose-your-own adventure motivational talk. It succeeds in the space
between laugh-with and laugh-at; he endlessly replays the same scenes
and motifs, a Groundhog Day of braggadocio and encouragement. His
catchphrases — “Another one,” “Bless up,” “They don’t want you to … ” —
have become a lingua franca. He is now the foremost user of the key
emoji, and, in his discussions of “major keys of success,” has rescued
that emoji from obscurity.
Devoted followers compile his short videos and pictures and repost them onTwitter and YouTube. There is, naturally, a parody Twitter account, a Reddit thread that compiles his statements and even a single-serving website, theydontwantyouto.win, that serves up his aphorisms with the click of a button that says “Another one.”
This
sort of portable motivation has become the DJ Khaled trademark. In
hip-hop, he functions as a professional enthusiast, but his Snapchat
takes that energy off the radio and recasts it in a more personal
setting. When you’re alone with your phone, DJ Khaled is there to urge
you on.
Photo
Breakfast of champions, DJ Khaled style.Credit
In
his public Snapchat stories, which span the full arc of his day in and
around his Miami home, DJ Khaled shows an innate understanding of
narrative, and a grasp of how to brand an idea instantly: say, watering
his plants, which he calls his “angels”; greeting the lion statue in his
garden, shouting “Lion!”; or running the camera over the length of his
body and landing on a fresh pair of sneakers, punctuating the moment
with “Another one!” “Special cloth” is the all-purpose term he uses to
describe anything fancy or impressive. Each day, he invites viewers to
“walk with me on the pathway to more success” as he films his feet.
(You’ll never be as familiar with a star’s feet as with his.)
He
even has a familiar supporting cast: Chef Dee, his personal cook, who
prepares meals with an unimpressed air; Benjamin Kickz, his teenage
sneaker dealer; and the Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside, who seems to
have ample free time to lounge by DJ Khaled’s fire pit. And of course
there’s DJ Khaled’s wife, who is often heard but not seen; sometimes
he’ll train the camera on himself as he’s whisper-barking declarations
of dedication to her. Whether her eyes are rolling or her eyelashes
fluttering, we don’t know.
Photo
DJ Khaled playing SOBs in Manhattan.
Other
hip-hop artists tend to use Snapchat as a more blatantly promotional
tool, or at least aren’t as comfortable spotlighting their
moment-to-moment activities. But DJ Khaled has no such inhibitions. He
films himself, nimbly, while in the shower. He shoots himself slathering
his body with cocoa butter. He posts clips of his pedicures and
massages. A recent story line revolved around the installation of a new
hammock: “It took me over 25 years blood, sweat and tears to swing in
this hammock.” He once referred to his genitalia as “the theory.” (With
the evanescence built into Snapchat, it can sometimes be difficult, the
morning after, to distinguish real life from fever dream, but he did
indeed say that.)
Several
times he has filmed himself as he’s receiving speeding tickets out on
the ocean. One recent afternoon, he recorded himself as he was lost at
sea — it was genuinely riveting, and also comic.
Photo
Chilling at the fire pit, wearing a catchphrase.Credit
What
you rarely see DJ Khaled doing is working. Maybe that’s because there
are corporate secrets he’s protecting, or maybe that’s because there has
always been something ineffable about his success. He doesn’t produce
or rap or sing on the many hits he’s released — instead, he serves as a
Greek chorus of chest-puffing, shouting catchphrases that become hip-hop
essentials.
But
there was a hint of his skill on his Snapchat the other day. He was
filming himself in the studio, speaking to an unidentified performer.
“The tone right there,” he said. “If you get that tone and we put words
to it, it’s gonna be a vibe. That’s the tone. That’s the tone. I’m
telling you — hit tone.”
Often
DJ Khaled will capture fans reacting to seeing him out in the wild.
“They don’t want you on yachts!” they shout at him from their boats as
he roars past them. A fan building a small business approached DJ Khaled
at a home improvement store, telling him that his persistent positivity
was a huge motivation. And celebrities far more famous than he have
adopted his lingo on Snapchat. Drake, in a bow tie: “They don’t want you
on G4s. They don’t want you to wear bow ties.” Justin Bieber, sitting
on a yacht and playing cards: “They don’t want you to jam Elton John on
the yacht. Go fish.”
It’s
possible, though, that the peak moment of pure DJ Khaled, untrammeled
by commercial imperatives, may already have passed. On Friday, about a
third of his posts included Cîroc Apple, in what felt like a paid
placement. And, increasingly, he’s pointing viewers to his recently
opened online store, wethebeststore.com,
where he sells T-shirts ($25) and flip-flops ($55) emblazoned with his
signature phrases. But that’s just making literal the viral spread
that’s already happening. Around the country — the world, probably —
people are adorning themselves with DJ Khaled’s signature phrases. The
pathway to success now has tributaries.
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