Through his networking prowess and an undeniable ear for mainstream radio trends, DJ Khaled has been directly responsible for placing 11 singles on Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” chart since 2007’s Listennn…The Album. Suffice it to say that when the President of the United States uses your double platinum single as entrance music during a White House Correspondents’ Dinner, you’ve arrived. You can more or less set your calendar alert to DJ Khaled releasing a charting single from a new album each summer, and as his delayed Suffering From Success album hits shelves October 22, 2013, the Drake-assisted “No New Friends” sits at the #54 spot on the charts—having risen in the ranks over the last seven weeks.
Sadly, Suffering From Success is mostly just a collection of unoriginal, disjointed songs about first world rapper problems. The set opens with Future—arguably the star of the album—bemoaning the spoils of success.
“Nigga, fuck this car, fuck these hoes, fuck these millions…fuck your feelings,” Future croaks, over a standard Young Chop beat on the album’s title track. The keys are dark, the syths blare and the bass makes even the weakest pair of speakers sound good. But when Ace Hood lists all of the drawbacks of success—sleepless nights, more haters, and issues with his lawyer and baby mama—things feel eerily familiar. And when he rhymes, “Swear last night I swimmed in that money / Then woke up in a million dollar car,” you definitely get the feeling you’ve been here before.
In the age of producer/deejay sanctioned mixtapes and albums primarily powered by purging contact lists and exchanging ProTools files, originality and innovation are the only things to separate a retail offering from a self-made list of songs any listener can make themselves via iTunes or Spotify. And while Suffering From Success has all of the coherency one would assume comes from locking down the A-Room of one of Cash Money Records’ studios, DJ Khaled offers none of the earmarks which have previously separated his collections from everyone else’s.
Despite being produced by two different camps—Young Chop and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League respectively—“Suffering From Success” and “Blackball” sound nearly identical. The same applies to the saccharine sweet “I Wanna Be With You” (squandering one of Nicki Minaj’s better verses in recent memory) and the “Take It To The Head”-inspired “I’m Still.” Instead of a stadium-ready anthem like “All I Do Is Win” or a clever take on Afrika Bambaataa’s “Looking For The Perfect Beat” such as “Holla At Me,” there’s little on Suffering From Success you can’t find on any of the featured artist’s solo projects.
One of Khaled’s high-water moments comes in the form of a completely coherent Lil Wayne’s appearance on “No Motive.” Tunechi deftly navigates a Streetrunner track divided into two different segments—a minimalist keyboard sequence followed droning synthesizers—with an endless barrage of similes and metaphors.
“I need Benadryl for my trigger finger, bad bitches for my homeboys / The grass is greener on the other side / I’m focused on my own yard / Ain’t got enough, need more dough / We twistin’ blunts like torsos / I’m rich as fuck, but more so / A poor soul,” Wayne rhymes, before the beat morphs yet again.
Khaled also offers one of his best experiments with format, bringing in Akon, Anthony Hamilton and John Legend to croon over a posse cut spanning six-and-a-half minutes with “Never Surrender.” It’s a bit more like a power-ballad than traditional cuts with multiple guests, but the break from format works in Khaled’s advantage. And Scarface and Jadakiss add some much-needed diversity to the usual list of collaborators.
It’s unfortunate that repetitive material and songs that are just overall poorly executed mar such moments. From his extensive work as a DJ, producer and an executive producer, DJ Khaled clearly knows what wins. And if you find yourself at a nightclub or party, it’s very likely a song found on Suffering From Success will serve as your theme song for the night. But coming from someone who has been so influential for the better part of the last decade, DJ Khaled’s latest has very little utility beyond the velvet rope.
DJ Khaled explains “I Feel Like Pac, I Feel Like Biggie” and talks about his album.
“Publicity stunt, that’s all about”, summarized Khaled. “When your seventh album coming and you still haven’t contributed a damn thing to any of those, you gotta make a statement. A bold one. Anything to get in the news. Putting dead legends in your song title is one of the cheapest practice to get some buzz, so of course we did that.”
After this, the Def Jem South president touched the subject of his potential guests, as well the creative process behind the album.
“It will be the same 10-12 dudes as always. You know me, having a 300-pages long booklet is nothing new. We’re like family. Ross and Birdman is like my brothers, and everybody gotta provide for his family. So they bring their artists from MMG and YMCMB, then we throw a few mutual cousins to the mix and that’s it. That’s how our tapes being made. It’s like an Amish community project.”
Regarding his new LP’s cover art, Khaled had an interesting story to share about how the inspiration has been born.
“Oh yeah, that was crazy. The concept is me sitting on a toilet with a headache. That’s how the picture has literally been made. In the background you can see the Ruby Mountains, that’s my wallpaper in the bathroom.” Khaled explained. “We were celebrating Ross’ birthday yesterday, so it was a lot if chicken wings and alcohol involved. Next morning I had a hangover from hot sauce, and as Eminem said once we do our best thinkings in the toilet. Sitting there made me realised that I’m in this exact position because I’m successful. Last night’s party, the fur and jewellery I’m wearing, the toilet I’m sitting on, that Ruby Mountain wallpaper, Ross sleeping at my leg in his own vomit … I can have those because I’m successful. So that’s how the inspiration came for the album: suffering on the toilet from success whilst I was producing my own shit”.
This is one of the most clever and coherent responses I have ever read on this site. A genuine laugh on this site for once.
Speaking of laughter, this album is laughingly awful, but is that really a surprise
haha this is great you should write for the Onion.
Funny.
Hilarious lol
Excellent satire.
Kill yourself for all that bullshit you said. Yes DJ Khaled does use his friends often but their collaborations worked so well why not do it again. And he’s been doing more work with artists like Akon and some of the indie artists.
Also, DJ Khaled does produce tracks and spits out verses for the tracks he doesn’t produce. That album cover is classic. You don’t see nas doing it.
Aww, look at the butthurt stan making shit up.
ROLE OVER AND DIE
fahhhhhhhQ Disss ninJa
garbage .. what a waste of time..
Meek Mill and Acehood where the ones who fucked up this album. The only good song ther is Never Surrender, that’s all!!!
and meek ruined it LOL
what about the j cole song i heard its decent too?
We The Worst!
WE DEPRESSED!
Haha, like it.
lmao!!…that was a good one
That’s what he’ll say after this piece of shit album flops. Suffering from debt and not success.
Homosexual at best
lol
another ymcmb flop
reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy dope
dopest albom
Not a surprise…..
1/5. and that 1 is just for J. Cole’s 5/5 track.
no love for scarface?
This is wack (like all ymcmb shit)
ymcmb, mmg, and dj khaled are FORCING it putting garbage music. they know it’s the end of the line and hope the ignorant masses buy into this crap. bring it back to that east coast rap!!
More like true Hip-Hop. I get sick of these old East coast niggas thinking y’all will comeback. Just accept that quality lyricists are from all over and not just NY.
True hip-hop? This is pure mainstream garbage.
i’ve never listened to a dj khaled album only ever heard a few singles ( i’m over 18 ) but from what i have heard his formula is old now.
DJ Khaled
I Wanna Be With You(Remix)
Average User Rating: 1.75
155 people have voted.
0.5 is the most popular ranking.
2 people gave it a perfect five
I don’t do any beats yet they call me DJ Khaled/
I don’t any ballads & I don’t eat any salads/
Haters can’t beat me and they also can’t see me/
I’m suffering from success, but it’s really diabetes/
I pick the same artists on all the same tracks/
And when I try to rap, it sounds like I smoked a lb of crack/
Only put out albums when a big fat check’s involved/
I buy watches all the time, but I don’t watch my cholesterol/
I’m certainly not a gangster & I’m not about that life/
Worst mistake ever I made was asking Nicki Minaj to be my wife/
I’m feeling like Pac, I’m feeling like Biggie/
Birds nesting in my beard, that’s why it feels so itchy/
I rap like a two year old and my concepts are mediocre/
If you don’t believe me, ask my mother, I’ll bet French Montana knows her/
[Hook]
You can catch me in your hood, screaming thru a bullhorn/
I used to rock 1x shirts, till I got bigger, now the wool’s torn/
Me and Ross, We The Best, matter of fact, We The Fattest/
And if you don’t like it, you can suck a fat dick/
We got a lot in common, eat at buffets till they close/
And after we do shows, groupies want to get in between our rolls/
I wear a lot of jewelry hoping one day I get robbed/
Pretty soon, I’ll be broke and Ace Hood will have to holler at McDonald’s for a job/
Ace is my flunky, he goes wood every album/
I’m predicting that his next disc will sell about a thousand/
Then I’ll have to drop him, even though I always tell him I got him/
All that screaming he do in his songs,somebody should have shot him/
I did commercials with Mickey D’s, now I’ll never go hungry again/
‘Cause I been suffering from obesity, and not success, since the tender age of 10/
I think that I’m a king, my friends say that we the best/
I run the rap game, but can’t go up a flight of stairs w/o running out of breath/
[Hook]
LOL this is better than most of the garbage on this album
You tried way too hard.
Stunaman, one hunnid. Khaled, do you thang. Cash Money, Young Money. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Young Mulah, baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh.
Khaled, we can’t use that….we only want the garbage shit you been putting out…you know, the bullshit YMCMB always putting out.
ROFL you bout to be signed to YMCMB Nigga
half a star apiece for the Jadakiss n Scarface verses khaled a fat lame nigga the hood don’t fuck wit this shit this music for retards to bang their heads off the plastic windows on the yellow bus
The guy who doesn’t know how to use capitalization calling people “retards.” Grammar is your friend “homie.”
who gives a fuck its hiphopdx I aint applying for college fuck you and all them lame faggots we the best ymcmb u prolly pull the dick off urself crying in the bathtub listening to DRIZZY!
@Khaled Wayne AceHood Meek wale nikki drake is trash yo
Agreed, Scarface & Jada the only good dudes on this whole album
35k first week
*350k first week.
i think only one of his albums has ever sold more than 300k total
He still doing fine. He still on a major label and none of his albums bombed. If one of his albums bombed, he would be off the label.
all his albums bomb but the platinum drake and wayne singles make up for it
All of his albums suceeded. DJ Khaled has other hit singles other than drake and wayne as well.
like?
That Nicki Minaj proposal song and the rick ross singles.
All of Khaled’s records, aside from a few singles, bombed.
2.5 rating really means 1 to the rest of us. Why does hiphopdx say harsh things yet this still gets a 2.5?
Also, does anyone notice the ironic use of album titles from ymcmb artists? Suffering from success (Suffering from many things OTHER than success), Rich Gang (Bitch/Broke Gang), or the upcoming gold album from tyga (which is really the Wood album from Tyga Woods.). Even if the titles aren’t ironic, the rappers names are sometimes ironic like my tyga woods example and ace wood.
The irony used will tell you how bad their albums are.
chris etrata you a fag
this was so not funny.
Are you ymcmb fans or something? Cause of course you don’t get it.
^^^ lol i didnt even get it
How many albums are truly 4 stars, 5 mics, or XXL? Not many, and a lot of the one’s that get high ratings suck the most shit. Khaled will always get 2 1/2 star reviews or lower cause the people reviewing it usually feel guilty if deep down they actually like it. That’s how certain artists get black balled. They work their ass off to give haters new music and all they can do is say how clichd, or unoriginal it is.
Cole ripped the whole album.
This is so wack.
suffering from constant failure
Failure? This is album #7.
#7 on what? LOL the poop 100?
Why even bother reviewing this garbage? Can ya’ll review some actually good albums that have came out and, you know, maybe give them some limelight instead of this bullshit?
The review reflects a rating closer to 1-1.5. Dx is way too generous with their scores.
Tell you what DJ Khaled is dope have you heard about the the Hip Hop break.com
tired of this cookie cutter rap.
yea i get it, you got money and exotic cars and will steal some lame dudes hot girl……please rap about something else.
this is audio poop
Typical 2013 hiphop. But this is the shit dumb people listen to.
So what does a smart ass prick like you listen to then?
Intelligence might be the fairest thing in the world, everybody claims to have it.
yeah that review seems like it should be more like a 1-1.5 star rating
ahhhh, suffering from making trash!
up to I saw the paycheck which said $6564, I have faith that my brothers friend was actually bringing home money in there spare time online.. there sisters roommate has been doing this for under and just now took care of the loans on there appartment and purchased a great new Ford Focus. discover this info here—–> http://smarturl.it/fndqbb
Hell’s Kitchen and Murcielago are good, rest of the album is garbage though.
Get off J Snore’s nuts. There were some other stand out’s.
I know Khaled is a critic’s favorite punching bag, but I think this shit is better than his last 3 albums.
At the very least, this shit is 10x better than French Montana’s abortion.
Suffering from being garbage. Kill yourself!!!!!
loooooool dj faggot
People have the realize that this album is DJ Khaled, this is his style of music. Why expect anything different ? It’s like listening to a meek mill song and not expecting to hear screaming and pump up lyrics/beats. It’s predictable, I found this album to be very good.
People have to realize that this album is dj khaled. You should expect this music from him. It’s like listening to a meek mill song and not expected to hear screaming and pump up lyrics/beats. It’s very predictable, I personally found this album to be very good.
Suffering from being a huge faggot.
“DJ Khaled has other hit singles other than drake and wayne as well”
That’s right. All I do Is Win, I’m So Hood, Go Head.
yeah he used to rely on T-Pain pretty hard for hits too, now hes using Future
Dj Salad, this album is poorly managed!
-1010101000101010/5
horrible
This is total shit -999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999/5
Is it that BAD?
Everything by DJ Khaled is that bad
GIVE ME A CHANCE
Youtube is all about finding new artist, & though I been rapping for a while im still consider a new artist. I just want my music heard thats all, im not looking for no record deal, getting famous ‘r anything like that.! so please just spare a few sec. to check me out, & if you like what you heard please SUBSCRIBE so ill know you actually listen & support
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaSNK0pm4eY
shit pose for the album cover fat boy.. looks like your sitting on the toilet
Damn 1.5. I aint heard it yet but yall go hard on anything mmg/khaled/montana related. They might as well not even post it here.
that would be great!
In a couple of years he will put out an album with officer ricky called ” Suffering from diabetes”
Boss
He has never had it. If you compare his We The Best album to this now, you can easily tell the difference. Its just crap
More shit from a towel head trying act like a nigga…Fucking cum stain
STRAIGHT GARBAGE!!!!! WORST ALBUM THUS FAR FROM HIM. I GUESS JUST LIKE HIS ALBUM COVER HE IS SUFFERING FOR MAKING A MESS!!!!!!
STR8 FUCKING DOPE YA NO PUSSY NIGGAS FUCK OFF THIS BE FOR THEM MUTHA FUKERS FUCKING FAT ASS WHY U BE IN SCHOOL NIGGA!!!
If Nicki Minaj has one of the better verses on your album, you should really question the overall quality.
I love Cole`s verse on Hells Kitchen and Never Surrender is a dope cut. The rest is….atrocious at times.
If you watch the making of vid of Never Surrender, these guys have so much passion, why they don`t apply that to the rest of this record is beyond me.
Once again with your ‘This Shit’s special’ crap. GTFOH! 1* for the jewellery of cover art.
BTW special shit = Game’s ‘ Breakfast with Al Pacino’ That shit’s special
All he cares about is money…blah, blah, blah. What an empty life he has.
i know right! i bet hes never found a woman who likes him for his true self!! he probably spends thousands tricking hoes that find his obesity disgustingly gross but want his money and gifts
Album is fire. Love the Cole and Nicki’s Verses. Khaled delivers again..
that song with J. Cole the second rapper vocals are like three levels lower than Coles just another example of poor production
terrible, he needs to quit
pile of rubbish
You all hating!
N
Not everybody can be a Kendrick or eminem!
We need the music for the clubs and he’s done like he does on every project!
Not the best album but I think it delivers everthing it sets out too!
I heard his leaving music now after realizing no one likes him and getting a new job as a BIN LADEN impersonator for arab birthday parties. Good luck to him.
His pose on the album cover is precisely like mine was when I heard this shit
There are four tolerable songs on this record (“Hell’s Kitchen”, “No New Friends”, “I Wanna Be With You” and “Helen Keller”). And one which deserves recognition just for one verse (T.I.’s on “I Feel Like Pac, I Feel Like Biggie”)
I liked the Jadakiss Scarface track (fuck that shouty philly nigga) but I wouldn’t even download this shit if this smelly fuck paid me to do it
what a pile of shit (1 star)
Get something worth listening to like MMLP2
SAD STORY:
Jayz: Fuk, mi lips are huge
Comment If You Sad.
I erm Sad
He doesn’t make the beats and he doesn’t provide the vocals, so apart from shouting ‘WE THE BEST!’ every now and again, what exactly does this fool do on the album????
He also says Another One
IM INNOCENT, I DIDNT DO IT! LOL
*Eats some skittles, drinks some tea*
Really DJ Khaled represents how wack MMG and YMCMB are. People are tired of Lil Wayne and Rick Ross.
Hell’s Kitchen is that track!!!!!!!!!
Don’t understand why people hate Relapse? Read this..
http://www.eminemalbum2014.com/haterelapse.htm
trash
He’s suffering from having a c*** in his ass. I jhavent heard the album yet so no score for me
Except Future’s part this album is trash
Their Music is catered for clubs only, Khaled don’t know how to put a hip hop album together…
I just wanted to see the ratings from the people and when i seen a 1.57 i was laughing my ass off. His album cover picture for this trash album is priceless!!!!!
bad
wack as shit
How the fuck is Ace Hood gonna rap about a million dollar car when he can’t afford a Rolex with a bezel that stays on the damn watch? Ace Hood is the perfect example of what’s wrong with the youth of this day and age; always posing in new shoes, jewelry, and cars, but is probably swimming in debt. Chill out, save your money, and stop trying to flex like you’re rich when you’re not.
wtf are you talking about saying his poor his got money just not as much as he appears to have
BTW, that album cover looks like a parody. What the fuck, Khaled…
I pull the same face when I listen to Khaled wack ass ‘music’ as I do when I walk into the mcdonalds toilets and someone has shit all over the floor …………this fat slob sand nigga disgusts me
wack
WAAACK
The most punchable face in hip-hop
Last week it was at a 1.57 now at a 1.53 keep the one star ratings coming y’all!!!!
2.5 on HHDX means yo album was shit even to the reviewer. Damn what a turd.
Only good thing was Scarface, Jada, and Future. Site needs a zero star rating. Fuck it, one star cause of Face and others. Only way to justify it.
I hate how some people try saying “oh its dj khaled so you gotta to expect just that”. Ok yea I know what to expect, but this album is complete ass compared to his previous albums. There isn’t any good “club bangers” or any good hype songs. Kiss the ring is ten times better than this shit. Then you have his competitor dj drama who blows him out with his music. Like dj khaled has a problem with going on sprees of picking the same damn rappers over and over.
It was ok..DJ Khaled just being DJ Khaled
Garbagex10=Straight Trash
Like HHDX said about ‘Kiss the Ring’, DJ Khaled is a yes man around these collaborators. This is by far the worst album from Khaled. ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Never Surrender’ (minus that Meek Mill verse) are the only meaningful songs on there. A ‘One Star’ from me.
Shit be trash
Why do we have to go thru this every year or 2 khaled makes the worst corny shit ever no one likes him the album has never come close to being good and they never sell fuck all but they keep coming like that ace hood bullshit
i cast my vote for
DJ Khalid
what a waste of money and talents and time and hiphopdx webspace…..seriously,,,,,,,,,
Lmaoo so bad
Give this fool some aspirin.