Khalid vs. DJ Khaled: Who Has More Number 1 Songs?
Singer Khalid and producer DJ Khaled have both made notable contributions to the music industry. Khalid has emerged as one of R&B’s new faces for the next generation, while DJ Khaled has been a constant presence in the music industry for well over a decade.
Khalid and DJ Khaled have been in the music industry for years
DJ Khaled first emerged on the music scene in the mid-2000s. His 2007 album We the Best contained the hit singles “I’m So Hood” with T-Pain, Trick Daddy, Plies, and Rick Ross and “We Takin’ Over” with Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman, and Lil Wayne. He continued his reign into the 2010s with hit songs such as “All I Do is Win,” “No New Friends,” “For Free,” “I Got the Keys,” “Wild Thoughts,” and more.
Khalid, meanwhile, has only been a face in the music industry for a few years. The 23-year-old singer released his debut album American Teen in 2017, which ended up being certified double platinum with over two million copies sold. It spawned his breakout singles “Location” and “Young Dumb & Broke.”
The following year, Khalid was featured on Logic’s song “1-800-273-8255,” which earned the singer his first Grammy Award nomination for Song of the Year. He earned a Record of the Year nomination in his own right for his single “Talk” from his 2019 album Free Spirit.
Khalid hasn’t had a number 1 hit yet
Khalid has had many hit songs over the years, and can claim a total of six Grammy nominations to his name. But at this point in his career, the Georgia-born singer has yet to notch a number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The closest Khaled came to the top spot was in 2019 with his single “Talk,” which peaked at number three on the Hot 100.
DJ Khaled’s song ‘I’m the One’ went number 1
Much of DJ Khaled’s shtick is about being the best in the business. Yet he didn’t earn his first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 until over a decade into his career. In 2017, his single “I’m the One” with Chance the Rapper and Quavo hit the top of the chart, a first for the three of them.
DJ Khaled values being at the top of the heap so much that he’s even thrown shade at other artists for outperforming him. When Tyler, the Creator released his Grammy-winning album IGOR in 2019, it beat out Khaled’s album Father of Asahd for the top spot — and Khaled believed that no one was actually listening to Tyler’s music.
Tyler addressed DJ Khaled’s need to be number one in a 2021 interview on Hot 97. “N—- ego had to deal with that because his whole identity is being number one and when he didn’t get that, that sat with him longer in real-life time than that moment. I moved on,” he said honestly. “His whole identity is ‘We the best, we the number one’. When the underdog to him took that away from him, that n—- ego was deflated. He’ll probably never admit it and it’s no hard feelings towards him.”
