Khaled had never heard of Snapchat when a friend suggested he check it out last year. While taking a break from touring last fall, he gave it a shot. “I didn’t really know how to use it,” he says on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles. “I was kind of just talking to myself.” Khaled filmed everything: his grooming routine, his breakfasts, his hot tub, and, especially, a Tuscan-style lion sculpture that he would often shout at while watering his plants. Mostly, he gave advice. He expounded on the importance of quality bedding (“The key to more success is to have a lot of pillows”) and regular meals (“They don’t want you to eat breakfast”). His most dramatic Snapchat moment occurred during a twilight ride on a personal watercraft in Biscayne Bay. “The key is to make it,” he repeated as he got lost on the water. Then he turned the camera on himself and added, “The key is not to drive your Jet Ski in the dark.”
Khaled made it, and since that fateful night he’s been pretty much the hottest ticket in media—the guy who’s figured out the digital property everyone wants a piece of but no one quite understands. He’s palled around with Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel, created Snapchat videos on behalf of Cîroc vodka, and signed a deal to host a weekly radio show on Apple Music’s flagship station, Beats 1. His catchphrases have occasioned explainers from otherwise serious news organizations, including Time, Quartz, and–key emoji–Bloomberg Businessweek. “DJ Khaled has completely cracked the platform,” says Emmanuel Seuge, senior vice president for content at Coca-Cola, one of Snapchat’s major advertisers. “He’s the king of Snapchat.”
Full Interview: Bloomberg
DJ Khaled’s popularity has sky rocketed thanks to his snapchat account which gets millions of views daily. Do you have a snapchat account? Do you see snapchat having longevity?
