Credit: Alamy / Hip Hop Hero

DJ Khaled and Tyler The Creator are completely different artists. While the former produces music tailored to the mainstream, Tyler The Creator often puts a lot of time and energy into making more meaningful projects, irrespective of their commercial viability.

It is evident that they have different priorities when entering the studio, and this was cruelly exposed in 2019 when the two artists released albums on the same day. On May 17th, DJ Khaled released Father Of Ashad, while Tyler dropped the iconic IGOR.

Khaled emerged in the early 2000s as part of Terror Squad and was merely a DJ from the Bronx. However, in the 2010s, he reemerged as a producer and part-time rapper who made albums with only the stars of hip-hop and R&B.

From Drake and Rihanna to Jay-Z and Beyoncé, DJ Khaled’s projects have been compilations of the most current and profitable artists in the culture. However, in 2019, he faced the ultimate humiliation. Until then, his formula of assembling an all-star lineup to bolster his tracklist had worked, but when up against IGOR, he found himself losing out on the charts despite the album only having a handful of features.

It was reported at the time that, after he found out he had debuted at number two, below Tyler The Creator, the Bronx native stormed into the Epic Records office with his crew and began ranting. According to Page Six, Khaled blamed the label execs for charting second instead of on top, where he was used to.

After his debut at number two, DJ Khaled took to Instagram, throwing shots at Tyler The Creator, writing, “I make albums so people can play it and you actually hear it. You know, driving your car, you hear another car playing it.

He continued, “You know, go to the barbershop, you hear them playing it. You know, turn the radio on, and you hear them playing it. It’s called great music. It’s called albums that you actually hear the songs. Not no mysterious shit that you never hear it.”

The line about “mysterious” music undoubtedly references Tyler, the Creator’s proclivity to record concept albums with deeper meanings. However, in 2019, popular opinion showed that hip-hop was tired of pop-rap fusion tracks. Furthermore, there was evidence that MCs were tired of making songs for “radio”, as Khaled attempted to boast about.

Khaled’s Father of Asahd featured his typical assembly of household names and saw him attempt to remix classic songs from the early 2000s, such as Outkast’s ‘Ms Jackson.’ It simply didn’t land.

In an interview on Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning show, the Call Me If You Get lost creator laughed at DJ Khaled and very publicly dissed him for attempting to discredit IGOR, telling the hosts, “Bro, that Khaled thing was like, it was fun, it was just watching a man die inside! The weirdo was winning. I was moonwalking in a wig. This nigga had everyone on his album. Everyone.”

Tyler went on to say Khaled’s ego was damaged after his debut at number two, adding, “For some guy like that to kind of indirectly be like, ‘That ain’t real rap, that ain’t real Black music,’ that’s what it felt like. And I was like, my nigga, don’t do…but I didn’t say nothing, I just let that No. 1 speak. Nigga’s ego had to deal with that because his whole identity is being No. 1. And when he didn’t get that, that sat with him longer in real-life time than that moment. I moved on.”

Tyler added, “That nigga ego was deflated, he’ll probably never admit [it].” With the recent return and domination of Kendrick Lamar in the face of Drake it is now clearer than ever that the culture is tired of pop-rap, and radio-friendly hip-hop and craves something with a bit more substance and in the next few years, certain artists may take a backseat as a result of this shift.