DJ Khaled recently took a trip down memory lane, recalling anecdotes of times he spent working with several artists, including Jay-Z, Kanye West and Rick Ross.
“I remember telling Ross, ‘Ayo, Ross. We made it,'” Khaled said during his recent interview with Life+Times. Khaled was discussing a conversation he had with Rick Ross while filming the video for “We Takin’ Over” in 2007. “That was the day, for me personally, that my life changed,” Khaled continued. “Ever since that, me and Ross been loyal to each other and there’s nothing he won’t do or nothing I won’t do for each other. We don’t say the word ‘no’ to each other. We just do it.”
Khaled also said he respects Kanye West, who he has worked with on records like last year’s “I Wish You Would.”
“Kanye’s like my friend and I love working with him because he’s the type of person to stop freestyling the record right there,” Khaled said. “He always will challenge anything. The shit could be sounding [like] the most amazing thing ever and he’ll still challenge it. That’s what I like about him. Kanye, I just respect his passion because I got passion too for the music and I go hard and I respect what he do. Me and him is just cool and he’s always kept it real with me from Day 1. He don’t do features. He do them for me. He don’t do videos. He do them for me. That’s what you call a friend. Kanye, thank you.”
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Khaled recalled his most difficult collaborations being “Free Mason,” which featured Rick Ross, John Legend and Jay-Z and “3 Kings,” which featured Dr. Dre, Rick Ross and Jay-Z. He also recalled the work he put into making those records come together.
“The record been done,” Khaled said of “Free Mason.” “Ross and them recorded. Him and Jay recorded. Been done. The problem was when I went to go get the files, the files wasn’t there. So we had to redo the record and the album had to be turned in the next day…I had to hit Jay and I think Jay was on vacation and the album had to go in production the next day.”
Jigga’s camp could not get a hold of Jay-Z at the time, Khaled said.
“So I hit Jay and I hit Jay with an e-mail,” Khaled said. “Just to make a long story short, the e-mail was like ten letters long because I had to explain to him, ‘We have to get this tonight.'”
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Jay-Z responded to the e-mail.
“He hit me back,” Khaled said. “‘Do you have a studio in the Hamptons that you can book?’ I called everywhere. We finally got a spot in the Haptons. He knocked it out. I got to go to mastering the next day. I don’t know if anybody believes me. It’s a true story.”
Similar complications occurred on “3 Kings,” his collaboration with Dr. Dre, Rick Ross and Jay-Z.
“The album was due in two days,” Khaled said. “Jay’s on tour with Watch the Throne in London and all these places. Don’t forget, Dr. Dre is not the easiest person either, but that’s amazing. Dre, Jay and Ross? That’s fuckin’ incredible, to have all them on a record. On Jay, he was on his tour, such a great guy, after a show, he knocked it out. The problem is there was different times so I had the studio booked for like three days straight and I just slept in the studio because I didn’t know when it would get done and when it does get done, the changes in the mix, the levels, because I gotta make sure they approve it as well because these are big artists. So, I sat there for three days just to get that turned in for mastering for Ross to be happy with it and for Dre and Jay to be happy with it. That’s part of an A&R’s job, the behind-the-scenes that people don’t see.”
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More from Khaled’s interview can be seen below.
DJ Khaled recently made headlines by proposing to Nicki Minaj in a video. Minaj later dismissed the proposal as “not serious.” The proposal made references to Khaled’s upcoming album, Suffering from Success, and his latest release, “I Wanna Be With You” featuring Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross and Future.
RELATED:DJ Khaled Announces New Album, “Suffering From Success”
