Artist: DJ Khaled
Album: Victory
Label: E1 Music
Release Date: 2nd March 2010
Production: DJ Nasty, Schife, The Runners, & The Inkredibles.
Guests: Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, T-Pain, Usher, Jim Jones, Young Jeezy, Plies, Drake, Nas, John Legend, Schife, Birdman, Bun B, Soulja Boy, Nelly, Lil' Boosie, Ace Hood, Pitbull, Jarvis, Rum, Tripple C's, Bounty Killer & Buju Banton.
Featuring a who's who of Hip Hop, the pioneer of Def Jam South is back with a fourth studio album, 'Victory'.
Originally, in what was to be a series of mixtapes, DJ Khaled, whom many rap fans instantly knew as being Fat Joe's Terror Squad DJ from back in the day, has now started a series of albums featuring a collective of the biggest names in today's Hip Hop world. He has worked in the past with some of the biggest names in the world, from Kanye West, T.I., Busta Rhymes and Snoop Dogg, to putting out tracks that have been so successfull, that names such as Jay-Z have added their verses to them.
In 2007, his second album, and most successfull to date, 'We The Best' was released, and it showed not only the rap world, but also the world that DJ Khaled meant business. The album was up for awards against some of the biggest mainstream solo artists, birthing the hits, 'We Takin' Over' and 'Im So Hood' which became two of the biggest Hip Hop anthems of that year. The follow up album 'We Global' was not as big commercially, despite an even stronger lineup of guests, selling only 294,000 copies in total, nearly half of what the last album sold.
So Khaled has lined up another list of big names, producers and set himself out to hit the top of the charts again. Apart from an intro only to try and boost his ego, featuring random ad-libs from Diddy, the album dives into the first single, 'All I Do Is Win' which T-Pain, Ludacris, Rick Ross & Snoop Dogg. The song by far is the most likely to top any chart, in fact it is so heavy that I can hear it as being a massive club anthem, and possibly an anthem for 2010 Hip Hop...but it failed to make an impact, making a poor #64 on the Billboard, and not even getting into the top 50 in the RnB charts. 'Fed Up' featuring Usher, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, Drake & Lil Wayne is another alternative club hit, but in my opinion, Usher's hook just does not suit the The Runner's beat... maybe something from T-Pain would suit this record more. However, Drake once again uses his hype to take the limelight of the track, if only Lil' Wayne could follow his feature with a top verse of his own, unfortunatly he did not.
Overall, the album fails to come close to the previous releases from Khaled. One thing which stood out, was the lack of Fat Joe. There were reports throughout 2009 that there may have been conflict between the two when Khaled was pictured several times without the trademark 'TS' chain which would normally aliegn his association with Joe's Terror Squad crew. This is the first album without a member of the squad rapping on it, and only has me wondering what is going on, if anthing behind the scenes.
I was a bit disappointed with some of the artist features on the album, especially considering I had been looking forward to this as being the first major Hip Hop release of the new decade. The track with Nas as far from exciting, as was collaborations with Jim Jones, Young Jeezy and as was Nelly. The production on the album is also not to the standard that you would expect from The Runners, especially when you hear some of the beats that they have made for the last albums, as well as solo material for artists such as Rick Ross. I am not expecting the album to sell well at all, and those that do buy this, may be wishing they didn't. Even a final track featuring Pitbull, who has blazed the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with his club bangers, failed to provide.
Dont get me wrong, Im not saying that the whole album is a waste of time, but rather that it is a disappointment to previous CDs, despite an impressive guestlist. There were
3/10
