DJ Khaled has a history of lining up A-list artists to feature on his projects dating back to his 2006 album, Terror Squad Presents DJ Khaled - Listennn - The Album. Sometimes those features contain subliminal shots at other artists Khaled has relationships with. During a recent interview with DJ Semtex for BBC Radio 1Xtra, Khaled addressed the possible conflict involved with artists subbing each other on his records.
“Let me be clear, everybody knows working with me that I’m not about no diss records,” Khaled said. “So that’s not happening.”
Except for when it does happen, as it did on “I’m On One,” where it seemed rather obvious that Drake had Jay Z in his crosshairs with the lines, “Hate these fucking allegations/I’m just feeling like the throne is for the taking/Watch me take it.”
As it relates to that gray area between an outright diss record and subliminal shots, Khaled apparently considers a few different variables including the inherent competition in rap. All of this is made under the assumption that Khaled actually catches the slick talk before the record gets a formal release.
“Sometimes there’ll be lyrics in the track, and I don’t catch it until the record comes out,” Khaled added. “Sometimes I’m so excited to get the verse, and I don’t realize it’s a subliminal in there. At the end of the day, I get it. We all do it in a certain way.”
Khaled also chalked up the hype over artists throwing jabs on his tracks to the status of those artists—mainly Drake and Jay Z. However, much like some of his listeners, it would seem Khaled also has to run some of those tracks back to catch the subliminal bars.
