DJ Khaled - We Global Review
Posted by Patrick Robinson on 09.19.2008
Money and riches, women, loud beats and some strong guest appearances. We Global is an album full of Miami flavored rap, take that as you will.
DJ Khaled is not a rapper, nor is he renowned for his production skills. He often screams gibberish on the intros of tracks, even one’s he’s not produced. He also has a tendency though, to put on rappers that are up and coming or that are making a name for themselves at the time, as well as rappers from his hometown, Miami.
In 2006, Listennn featured appearances from Rick Ross, whose album was released a few months after, and Lil Wayne, who was beginning to attract attention on a global scale, mainly through his mixtape appearances.
In 2007, We The Best featured even more Rick Ross and Lil Wayne and a still relatively unknown, Flo Rida. Production duos of Cool & Dre and The Runners also got a chance to display their skills on the album.
In 2008 then, we are presented with Khaled’s latest offering, We Global. Is there anything good here, worth your time? Or just another glorified mixtape?
Tracks
1. Standing On The Mountain Top Ft. Ace Hood & Pooh Bear
2. Go Hard Ft. Kanye West & T-Pain
3. Out Here Grinding Ft. Akon, Rick Ross, Lil Boosie, Trick Daddy, Ace Hood & Plies
4. Go Ahead Ft. Fabolous, Fat Joe, Flo Rida, Rick Ross & Lloyd
5. I’m On Ft. Nas & Cool (of Cool & Dre)
6. Red Light Ft. The Game
7. We Global Ft. Fat Joe, Ray J & Trey Songz
8. She’s Fine Ft. Sean Paul, Busta Rhymes & Missy Elliott
9. Final Warning Ft. Rock City, Ace Hood, Blood Raw, Bali, Lil Scrappy, Shawty Lo, Brisco & Bun B
10. F*** The Other Side Ft. Dunk Ryders & Trick Daddy
11. Bullet Ft. Rick Ross & Cham
12. Blood Money Ft. Brisco, Rick Ross, Ace Hood & Birdman
13. Defend Dade Ft. Pitbull & Casely
First off, this album won’t be for everybody. You can’t expect clever rhymes or tricky metaphors, nor can you expect songs ranging beyond money, riches, women or thug posturing. What you CAN expect though, are some extremely catchy beats and hooks, something that will be burning up car CD players for the remainder of the year.
“Standing On The Mountain Top” opens up with a lengthy spoken word into from Khaled himself, with a hook of sorts from Pooh Bear as Ace Hood gets the last 40 seconds or so to deliver a blistering fast verse, making sure that everybody knows that “they” are the best. “They” being anybody attached to this project really.
Next up though is the first real track of the album. The Runners show up for their first of four appearances behind the boards with a loud, dominant track as T-Pain and Kanye reunite on “Go Hard”. Kanye is utilizing the auto-tune affect here, which is still taking some getting used to for me as T-Pain is regulated to hook duty: not one of his best, but not bad by any means.
The lead single, “Out Here Grinding” features The Runners on the beat again, if you like their production style, you’ll love their contributions to this album. The cut is less than four minutes in length, but amazingly, each rapper gets their own verse (Akon is on the hook) and a chance to shine. Even Lil Boosie who is usually terrible manages to make his verse work. Despite being originally billed on the track, neither Young Jeezy nor Lil Wayne make the final cut for some reason.
“Go Ahead” is a decent club track tempered by Lloyd on the hook as the four rappers talk about approaching a women in the club. Yet again, The Runners are on the beat with probably their best offering on the album.
You’ve then got two (essentially) solo tracks from Nas and The Game. Nas’ track features production from Cool & Dre, who have really stepped up their production game this year I feel, with Cool providing a short hook. Lyrically, Nas raps a mostly materialistic track, but does so with a flow he hasn’t used in years. Game’s solo track features production from The Inkredibles and sounds like a track that might have been knocked back from L.A.X.. The hook is a bit annoying, and Game drops his flow on occasion, plus, the name-dropping is back, but still, the track isn’t exactly terrible.
This first half of the album is easily the better half though, as the remaining tracks are either average, or just bad. Danja drops by for a very Danja-ish beat on “She’s Fine” which is brought down by an average Missy outing, and a pretty bad Busta verse. If this is what we can expect from Busta on Blessed…look out. Likewise, “Final Warning” (The Inkredibles) is also brought down by average guest appearances. Even the usually dependable Bun B falters in his verse, as Blood Raw, Lil Scrappy and whoever is on the hook (I’m assuming it’s Rock City) all drag down the song. Special mention goes to Shawty Lo, who raps so…damn…slow and fits about one eighth of the words in his verse the others manage.
There’s also the issue of DJ Khaled who insists on screaming adlibs from his list of catchphrases he has, including and not limited to, “We The Best!” and “We GLOBAL!”, just in case you didn’t know the name of the album. It happens on pretty much every track, so that may be a significant deterrent to many, however I tried, and somewhat successfully to shut his voice out whenever he came on.
“Defend Dade” highlights a fair history with Pitbull and the Diaz Brothers who produce the track as Pitbull closes out the album with an ode to his hometown Miami, a vibe that is ever present throughout the album.
The 411: As I said at the start, you pretty much know what to expect from this album. Money, women, Miami, loud production for the car, We Global has all that. If you’re up for some music for a party or the car, or you’ve got a craving for that Miami flavor, look no further than We Global.
