For years DJ Khaled’s motto has been “We the best!” “We’re number one!”. In 2019 that aura was cracked. The man who drove that blow into his aura? Tyler the Creator
Tyler has been famous for releasing an album every 2 years. Starting with Goblin in 2011, Wolf in 2013, Cherry Bomb in 2015, and Flower boy in 2017. A common theme throughout these releases was none of them debut number one on the billboard charts. Goblin debut at #5, Wolf debut at #3, Cherry Bomb at #4 and Flower Boy at #2. Following the trend, it seemed like 2019, with the release of IGOR, could be the album that finally debuts at number one.
Only if he could surpass the biggest bully in all of music.
As hard as it is to admit, Khaled definitely was more successful than Tyler the Creator in commercial performance. By 2019 he already had two #1 albums in Major Key (2016) and Grateful (2017), his most viewed music video had more then ten times the number of views Tyler’s most viewed video of his career and 56 placements in the Billboard top 100.
With his success it’s no surprise that Tyler himself described Khaled by saying in a hot 97 interview “His whole identity is being number one. We the best we the number one”. Without a doubt Khaled was hoping for yet another successful release as he was planning a brand new project titled “Father of Asahd” at the same time that Tyler was working on “IGOR”
Father of Asahd was a project you might say is commercial gold. On every single track on the album, there was a feature. Names like Beyonce, Lil Wayne, Gunna, John Legend, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Future and even Post Malone and Travis Scott on the same song. The album even had a feature from artist Nipy Hustle at a time when he was literally dead. And the cherry on top to the whole thing, Khaled had a team of writers and producers on every single song.
With his history of big names and the clear work that had gone into this project, Khaled thought he easily had another #1 album on his hands when it finally dropped on May 17th 2019. That is on the very same day when Tyler dropped his magnum opus. Igor.
Igor had a much deeper story compared to any of Tylers previous albums. Characterized by primarily by his absurd blonde wig. Not for some deep reason but simply because Tyler liked it.
The track list was further enhanced with how Tyler wrote and produced the album all by himself. Combined with a recognizable album cover, Igor finally pushed Tyler the creator over DJ Khaled and “Father of Asahd” for the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 100 in a result that seemed to surprise Tyler himself. In an interview with apple music he said “This is no disrespect to Khaled or anyone. But Cardi B, 21 Savage, Travis Scott, Beyonce, Post Malone, Jay Z everyone who sells billions and billions of records and the fact that I beat them with this (Igor) is crazy to me.”
Tylers win was covered by news article after news article and celebrated by those who root for the underdog. Although if there was one man who didn’t enjoy Tyler’s success, it was DJ Khaled.
Khaled reportedly freaked out to his label after his album failed to become #1 on the charts. According to Page Six “Khaled stormed into his label’s offices and threw a temper tantrum after hearing that Father of Asahd would debut at #2. Per one source, “Khaled stormed into epic with an entourage. He was angry and yelling.” Another source added: “He was furious. There was some nasty stuff said. Publicly, he’s all about positivity but there is a nasty side to him that people don’t see… he overhyped the record and blew it up to be his biggest ever.””
As his temper tantrum started to go viral, he began to backpedal on criticism saying that he was only mad at Billboard not Tyler. This seemed to have cleared him of all wrongdoing until he posted a video to his instagram stating “I make albums so people can play it and you actually hear it. Driving a car and you hear another car playing it. Go to the barbershop you hear them playing it. Turn on the radio, hear them playing it. It’s playing everywhere. It’s called great music. It’s called… albums that you actually hear the songs. Not some mysterious s@#$ that you never hear”
All it took was one #2 placement for Khaled to lose his mind and his facade of positivity, crumble before the fans very eyes. Without saying his name Khaled loosely imply that Igor wasn’t real music because it was Mysterious, you couldn’t hear the songs and it wasn’t being played by the cars around him or in a barbershop.
After an insane amount of backlash from the fans, Khaled deleted the video from social media. But it was already too late.
The media had already weighed in on Khaled’s meltdown with one outlet saying “what the DJ/Producer/Not-very-inventive-hype-man seemed to have missed is that exposure of a record is what literally gets you on the charts. Tyler’s album simply did better. The fact is grabbing a bunch of the biggest names in hip-pop, putting them on the same generic trap beat and introducing them on the same soundboard (“another one”) literally just doesn’t stack up to tyler’s innovative songwriting, production and visuals.”
YouTubers such as Anthony Fontano weighed in by saying “This metric of Well they’re playing in it a barbershop, the album has gotta be hot is kind of an old way of doing things. Khaled’s whining and indignant way of complaining here is disgusting, and at the end of the day it just shows how out of touch he is. You can’t just assemble the avengers of hip pop and put them on a generic trap beat and expect to be praised”
It’s worth mentioning that Tyler’s album flower boy was behind Lana Del Reys album by nearly 1,000 units. Instead of being upset, he congratulated Lana and continued to flex his aritstry even more with Igor. Tyler acted humbly, Khaled threw a tantrum.
At the beginning Tyler stated “I just let that #1 speak” while using the window of popularity and eyeballs to drive even more sales to Igor. Now he continues to troll by saying “Who tf listens to Tyler the creator”. 2 years later, Tyler’s new album “Call me if you get lost” also debut at number one on the billboard 100, prompting another tweet saying “MYSTERIOUS MUSIC! HA!”
This story does have a happy ending. At the pre-grammy brunch, Khaled and Tyler both posed for a picture, not saying anything about it but confirming that the beef was squashed and there was no issues between the two. Also given that on the Hot 97 interview Tyler said “There’s no hard feelings towards Khaled. For all the work he’s done I have mad respect for him”.