DJ Khaled, We Global
Featured Album
Bruckheimer rap — the perfect soundtrack for escaping state police via speedboat.
DJ Khaled manages exactly one salient point on the succinctly titled We Global (somehow economizing even further on 2007's already concise We The Best): "The industry hate, but they gotta see me/ Turn your TVs on, bet you all you see is me!" Indeed. Despite being a non-rapping, roly-poly Pakistanian immigrant who seems to be a "DJ" in the same sense Brutus the "Beefcake" was a "barber," Khaled has somehow made himself ubiquitous on rap radio and what is left of the "music" portions of MTV and BET. It's unclear what Khaled does, exactly; he doesn't produce the tracks on the albums that bear his name, nor, apart from his few lines on the intro, does he rap on them: instead, the songs are filled with verses from Hot 97 mainstays like Fat Joe, Rick Ross, Fabolous, Plies, Lil Boosie and others. Khaled's role seems mostly to be general awesomeness-reaffirmer: whenever the point might be in doubt, he helpfully reminds everyone that what you are hearing is, in fact, awesome.
And it truthfully is, in at least a few senses of the word. First of all, these tracks are BIG. Like, absurdly huge, pumped so full of declaiming trumpets, screaming synthesizers and capital-letters choruses that they turn the rappers on them into a phalanx of super-heroes swooping in to save the city. The "Khaled aesthetic," as he has carefully delineated it, is that of a burning helicopter crashing into a speeding train that is also on fire which then slams into an army base full of explosives: in his devotion to excess, Khaled makes Michael Bay look like a humble miniaturist. You know how five-year-old boys will sing little songs to themselves while they play with their action figures? Every song on We Global sounds like what that kid hears in his head. The adrenaline rush is relentless, and undeniable.
Not to mention that these tracks tend to get the mid-level rappers on them very amped up, resulting in several headknock-worthy moments. Fabolous sounds as nimble and sly as he has in years slinging passable come-ons and corny jokes on "Go Ahead"; Busta Rhymes curls your hair with one of his trademark dirty-old-man verses on "She's Fine"; and the Game flashes more of his knucklehead charisma on, err, "Game" than he did at any point on his recent record. ("Young black entrepreneur like Cosby and his Jell-O?" That's the kind of headscratcher I've come to expect from you, Game!) You don't go to see Transformers for insight into life and love, and you don't put We Global on when you're feeling contemplative. But if you plan to spend any time on a treadmill in the next month, this album needs to accompany you.
