L.A. + DJ: REID REUNITES WITH KHALED
DJ Khaled has been signed to Epic Records by L.A. Reid. The exclusive deal includes Khaled’s We the Best Music Group, which comprises a label, management publishing and production divisions and a studio. Khaled’s Major Key, his ninth album and the first release on We the Best/Epic, will drop soon.
“Bringing Khaled to Epic is a blessed reunion for me,” said Reid, who signed Khaled and We the Best to Def Jam in 2008. “Khaled is a supremely gifted artist and social-media guru whose music has defined hip-hop and R&B for the past decade. With an extremely loyal fan base radiating worldwide out of Miami, every new release by Khaled has now become a firestorm event and his devoted legion of fans only grows bigger by the day. With Khaled’s passion and creative savvy, together with our dedicated and versatile staff, we are poised to reach even greater heights together than ever before."
In the gist of his elaborate statement, Khaled noted that Reid “was the first executive to give We the Best Music an opportunity to distribute my music on a grand scale. It is a very satisfying feeling to realign myself with someone who shares my vision of bringing fans the best music possible. When I think about Epic Records, the first thing that comes to mind is Michael Jackson’s Thriller. An iconic artist with an iconic album and iconic logo. In short I'd like to thank all the people behind the scenes that helped make this partnership a reality. And to all aspiring superstars across the globe, I say this: I AM SEARCHING FOR NEW TALENT TO PRESENT TO THE WORLD!”
One of the biggest personalities on social media, Khaled has 6m+ Snapchat followers, 3m+ on Instagram and nearly 3m on Twitter.
“His Snapchat is a renewable source of relentless positivity, a kind of choose-your-own adventure motivational talk,” New York Times critic Jon Caramanica wrote about Khaled. “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.”
