DJ Khaled

Khaled Mohammed Khaled (; Arabic: خالد محمد خالد; born November 26, 1975), known professionally as DJ Khaled, is an American record producer, disc jockey, radio personality, 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)—both peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200; the latter was supported by the triple platinum–certified single "All I Do Is Win" (featuring T-Pain, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross).

His fifth studio album and major label debut, We the Best Forever (2011), saw continued commercial success, and helped bring Khaled to mainstream prominence as it was supported by his first Billboard Hot 100-top ten single, "I'm on One" (featuring Drake, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne). 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. Throughout 2015 and 2016, Khaled gained wider recognition as a public figure 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 the singles "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 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively. 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, and was Khaled's first Grammy Award win. His eponymous twelfth album (2021) also peaked atop the Billboard 200, along with his thirteenth album, God Did, which released the following year. The latter's title track (featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend and Fridayy) earned three nominations at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance.

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 distributed his releases since its formation in 2008, while has also Khaled signed other artists to the imprint including Ace Hood, Kent Jones, Mavado, Flipp Dinero, and Vado, among others.