Music mogul, entrepreneur, producer, CEO, even DJ Khaled, whose real name is Khaled Mohamed Khaled, doesn’t know just what to call himself.
“I am like the hip-hop Quincy Jones, you know what I am saying? … I am an entrepreneur. I am a young mogul,” said Khaled said on ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ in March 2016.
Indeed, Khaled has a knack for constantly promoting himself while still appearing agog at his own success. So it is hard not to be charmed when listening to Khaled riff.
It’s at the heart of his appeal and it has helped turn the pudgy 42-year-old Palestinian-American into a social media star, reports CNBC.
“Being authentic always wins,” Khaled told CNBC in June, about how to be successful on social media. That certainly has been the case with Snapchat. His posts on the platform were seen by three million to four million people at the time. Khaled now has more than nine million followers on Instagram and more than four million on Twitter.
He brought in $24 million in total pretax earnings in the 12 months ending in June, according to Forbes’ September 2017 ranking of the wealthiest hip hop stars and has released 10 albums since 2006.
Young, broke and determined
It is part of Khaled’s relatability, though, that he hasn’t always been so successful.
Khaled’s parents are Palestinian immigrants who arrived in Louisiana in their 20s. His father came with $20 in his pocket, so his parents sold clothes out of their van at a local flea market to make money. Khaled was born in New Orleans in November 1975.
“They worked every day, seven days a week, 24 hours a day,” Khaled said. “If I wanted to hang out with my mother and father, I had to hang out with them hustling,” he added.
“I was just a kid and I got evicted probably 10 times,” he writes in his book ‘The Keys’. “My friends would come over and I would have no furniture. Nothing in my fridge. Just records. Records were my furniture and the floor was my bed when I went to sleep at night.”
In Florida, Khaled was pulled over one too many times for driving with a suspended license. A frustrated judge sentenced him to a month in jail and a month was enough to scare him straight.
“The day after I got out, I moved from Orlando to Miami. I just had to. It was like a big switch just got flipped on in my head,” Khaled writes in his book.
In 1996, Khaled talked his way into a job as a DJ at a Caribbean pirate radio station, Mixx96. Slowly, his career gained momentum. There was no social media yet, “But the word of mouth in the streets talked about it,” he told NYC radio host Ebrohim “Ebro” Darden in 2015.
In 2003, 99 Jamz gave Khaled his own show, where he stayed for another 10 years. Gradually, Khaled got the idea that he wanted to produce his own music. In 2006, he started his production company, We the Best.
His first nationally recognised album came out in 2007 and featured half a dozen guest appearances.
The king of Snapchat
Though Khaled didn’t work his way up in an era where he could leverage social media, his fame has skyrocketed in the last couple of years because of it.
“I tell people all the time that Snapchat changed my life,” says Khaled in his book.
Khaled joined the platform at the end of 2015 while spending some time at home recovering from being on the road. Khaled shared his daily routines, inviting fans into the more personal aspects of his life.
While posting videos of himself doing everything from watering his plants to giving pop-psychology ruminations on success, Khaled was becoming a bona fide Snapchat star. It took him from a well-known name in the hip hop world to a staple influencer for the millennial set.
“DJ Khaled has completely cracked the platform,” said Emmanuel Seuge, senior vice-president for content at Coca-Cola (one of Snapchat’s major advertisers), in a 2016 Bloomberg feature. “He’s the king of Snapchat.”
Khaled went so far as to broadcast the birth of his son on Snapchat.
Part of what has made Khaled such a breakout sensation on the platform is that signature casual, positive language of success. He uses it with his followers, calling his lessons “the keys” (hence the title of his book and his liberal use of key emojis).
My journey in life, I have always been told, ‘no,’” Khaled told Ellen Degeneres on the show. “And I always took them ‘nos’ and turned them into ‘yes,’ you know what I am saying? I always believed in my path, my vision. Even though I know you have to go through trials and tribulations in life — but I do know there is sunshine on the other side.”
