The creep of positivity culture has been steady and relentless. It has become a dominant modality of Instagram influence and global culture ever since the publication of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and among its most ardent benefactors (and beneficiaries) is DJ Khaled. For years, he has blended be-your-best-self mantras with middling music to great fame and, presumably, growing wealth; he even published a book detailing his “keys to success.” In the Snapchat era, Khaled’s vague, emphatic preaching made him an intriguing public figure beyond music. But unfortunately, as in the arena of emotional development, shouting aphorisms does little to prompt significant artistic growth.
Khaled’s new album, Father of Asahd, continues in his tradition of envisioning every song as a posse cut. The project’s 15 tracks feature 29 different performers plus his own signature bellowing. (The absence of Drake, a reliable hitmaker and longtime collaborator, is palpable.) The result is pure chaos. Since assembling Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman, and Lil Wayne for “We Takin’ Over” in 2007, Khaled has proven himself adept at project-managing rap and R&B’s biggest stars into contributing verses for transparent plays at song-of-the-summer singles. Along the way, the strategy has produced actual anthems, hit songs with a backseat full of guests that will likely activate nostalgia even when they sound thin and tinny in retrospect.
The formula’s limitations are evident on Father of Asahd: There are plenty of voices but no clear message or intention. The world seems colder than it did in 2015, and Khaled’s platitudes no longer function as an effective anchor. Vaguely uplifting songs (“Won’t Take My Soul” and “Weather the Storm”) mingle with generic theses on envy and loyalty (“Jealous” and “You Stay”). Specificity, I’ve learned, is another victim of positivity vulture. It’s hardly a flex to gather dancehall’s biggest names—Mavado, Sizzla, and Buju Banton, newly released from prison—for a motivational opener, only to throw in strained vocals by New Jersey singer 070 Shake.
But something is bound to stick. There are a handful of introspective verses from Meek Mill and Lil Baby; it’s a shame they are not alchemized into effective songs. Cardi B and 21 Savage rapping over a Tay Keith beat on “Wish, Wish” is refreshing and poised for radio play. The clear standout is “Higher,” featuring John Legend and the late Nipsey Hussle. Especially in the context of his death last month, Hussle’s two verses are an eerily on-time reflection on his own life, beginning with his family history and ending with this urgent prophecy: “Homicide, hate, gang banging’ll get you all day/Look at my fate.” It offers a rare moment of depth and vulnerability on an album largely marked by inanity.
In recent years, ostensibly as Khaled has increased his budgets and access to the major-label clearance apparatus, his more-is-more approach has expanded to include a reliance on recognizable samples and interpolations; “Wild Thoughts,” featuring Rihanna, Bryson Tiller, and a prominent sample of Santana’s “Maria, Maria,” reached No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard charts in 2017. This time around, samples include OutKast’s “Ms. Jackson,” which is remade into “Just Us,” a cloying pop song featuring SZA; “Freak N You,” featuring Lil Wayne and Gunna, is built around sped-up Jodeci vocals; the Buju Banton closer “Holy Ground” borrows a riff from Lauryn Hill’s “To Zion.” It strikes as a cynical play at nostalgia. Whereas his peers are trying new strategies to best the streaming wars, Khaled, a firm Gen Xer, appears to remain focused on traditional radio. His challenge to the hegemonic structures of radio and music industry marketing, he recently told Jimmy Fallon, is to force multiple current singles into rotation.
Here and elsewhere, Khaled owes a great debt to Diddy, another guru of positivity and the progenitor of Khaled’s style of not-quite-producer, not-quite-curator auteurship. The blueprint for much of Khaled’s discography was established by Diddy way back when he was known as Puff. In 1997, he released No Way Out, a Bad Boy compilation that repurposed songs by the Police, Grandmaster Flash & the Message, and India to various degrees of effectiveness. One of those tracks, “Senorita,” is literally referenced on Father of Asahd’s “You Stay,” in the form of a similar use of India’s “No Me Conviene.” More than 20 years later, it’s time to try something new.
