MAJOR 🔑 — DJ KHALED

You smart. You loyal. For that — here’s what we’re feelin’ off of MAJOR 🔑:

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5. “HOLY KEY”
“Can’t fuck with you if you racist // Beat your ass until you purple // They can’t even tell what your race is”

ADAM: K. DOT always delivers on his verses as expected, BIG SEAN however, a pleasant surprise. It was refreshing to hear him say some real shit on a track — touching on recent all-too-common police shootings. He cleverly plays on two fronts, saying he’s gonna beat a racists face in until its purple, a very Malcolm X-ian approach, but switches up to referencing Dr. King (and Dr. Dre.) While his lines on HOLY KEY were definitely more lyrical than usual, I still can’t get over his arguably overly-droning talk-rap style.


4. “DON’T EVER PLAY YOURSELF”
“I need my name in the cocaine almanac, Jada // Real dope boy put me in the hall of smack”

CAL: New York legends link up with Miami and fuck, I love me a posse-track. From inferno to fire: JADA, BUSTA, KENT JONES, FAB/FAT JOE. 4th on our list cause JADA didn’t laugh.


3. “JERMAINE’S INTERLUDE”
“And if you never go gold again, at least you will know // The end of your road was chose, by you and not companies // Who control”

CAL: J.COLE went double platinum without features.


2. “I GOT THE KEYS”
“I got a bag for lawyers, like, “Fuck your charges!” // Hop out the courtroom, like, “What charges?””

ADAM: Finally, HOV drops a real verse post-Magna Carta Holy Grail. Still not taking L’s, even on the court steps, JAY-Z opens fire on everyone; even Drake isn’t safe on top of the CN Tower. Jay is still number one and reminds everyone of it, he dreams in color and his wife ‘Yonce. He is life goals.


1. “NAS ALBUM DONE”
“Now everywhere all I see is Pablo, Esco // Last time I checked I was still breathin’”

CAL: As much as I personally love NAS, I have to admit, this is one of the hottest tracks he’s been on in what feels like ages. People like to accredit that to his tendency to make poor beat choices — a camp which I’m in. That being said! This is not one of those cases. NAS in company with The Fugees’ “Ooh La La La”? That alone is all indications of fire. And without being too graphic, it uncontrollably does something to my body.

Onto the verses, NAS did not disappoint going off immediately with impeccable flow and wordplay. One of many but, those bars about being a venison eater? He ain’t new to this! — which he touches on with a bit of sneak dissing. But more importantly is his social commentary on this track. NAS has always been known to be an observer and despite this track being a side piece to this next solo project, it was meaningful to hear him still make mentions and say something powerful about the Black community. He’s Escobar, the God Son. Put some respeck now.

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ADAM & CAL: DJ Khaled was the source of half of the internets memes not too long ago: Dove is a major key, cocoa butter is a major key, never giving up is a major key; at a certain point things got so meta that we was questioning if our keys were a major key.

Complete with a real lion on the album cover, meme no more, we say: MAJOR 🔑 is a MAJOR 🔑. We will say that we were throughly impressed by KHALED’s ability to pull the features list that he did. (A bit too much Future for our taste but, impressive nonetheless.) His awareness to allow for both turn-up and semi-conscious tracks to coexist on his album is also commendable. But by far the best part of this project is KHALED getting every artist to fall in line with his memes. ’03 Jay would’ve responded with a quick “FOH.”

Put this album in your lineup and you will succeed. We thank and congratulate you for finishing this review. You played yourself.