DJ Khaled Talks ‘We The Best’ Motto and Passion to Blend Diverse Sounds: ‘God Blessed Me to Love All Music’

variety.com:

A.D. Amorosi The music world is filled with self-made people, and DJ Khaled will never let anyone forget that he is one. Amid 15-plus years of gold and platinum albums, chart-topping collaborations with famous friends including Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Drake, Rihanna, Kanye West, longtime friends Lil Wayne and Rick Ross and even Justin Bieber, he is actually best known for his ubiquitous, boastfully self-referential shout-outs — to himself, in the third person — and his “We the best!” verbal branding.Love it or hate it, you can’t avoid or forget it — and Khaled is as self-aware as he is self-referential.

From online memes of fans’ favorite Khaled jokes or mispronunciations to comedian Aziz Ansari impersonating the DJ’s boasts during his 2022 Netflix stand-up special, people talk about Khaled almost as much as he does himself.

But when talking about his Hollywood Walk of Fame star, which he will get April 11, it is in many ways a culmination of the 46-year-old’s decades of working his way up from humble beginnings as the New Orleans-born son of Palestinian immigrants, to a record-store employee, radio DJ and finally a star in his own right, Khaled’s voice drops down to a modest tone before ramping back up to hype-man volume. (And yes, in real life, he talks just as he does on his records.)“Everybody who puts out great work loves greatness to come back,” he says. “Now, am I driven by awards or other accolades?

No. That I came from nothing, that I made it this far, and that I keep going and I keep growing — that’s what drives me. Being a father of two children drives me.