Keys Open Doors

Reflecting on my first book published ten years ago; DJ Khaled's memoir The Keys

really the big news here is that I had a septum piercing

Several weeks ago I met author and singer of the rock band Thursday, Geoff Rickly at a book event. More specifically, we were on the same panel about audiobooks and literary fiction and we’d left with the bonhomie and good humor of two people who were vibrationally compatible and happy/relieved to have done well for a crowd.

Yesterday, he texted me about how much he’d enjoyed DJ Khaled’s memoir The Keys, a book I’d ghostwritten and we had a lovely chat, after which I was prompted to pull it off the shelf.

Lion!

Technically, it was my first New York Times bestseller but more crucially it was the first time I was tasked to write a book without any idea of how to go about it. I had written several celebrity profiles by then. I had been on tour with Rihanna for seven days with a caravan of other journalists but nothing had quite prepared me to sliding into the fiefdom of a rap personality as they were blowing up.

If you’ll remember, this was when DJ Khaled whose name is Khaled Khaled, had gone stupendously viral on Snapchat for getting lost at sea on jet skis at night. It was a harrowing yet heartwarming ordeal and all the while, lit only by the glow of his phone, he narrated the events through a series of reassuring platitudes. The key is not to panic. The key is to make it. The ocean is real. The key is never give up. It’s not easy to win.

And then the most crucial key: The key is not to drive your jet ski in the dark.

For this, he flipped into selfie mode giving us an indelible image that was equal parts Blair Witch and Paddington Bear.

He looked frightened and guileless and we were rapt and invested.

Eventually, he was able to navigate his way back to the intercostal and find his way home and we were all relieved but also acutely aware that we’d collectively witnessed the formation of a powerful shift in personal branding.

He’d already had wins. Most notably, the colossus All I Do is Win, as well as eight studio albums but this is the moment where America noticed him. The morning shows wanted him. Ellen. Martha Stewart. He’d become a household name and knew it, and everything he said caught fire. He churned out content like an influencer in a clout house, shining his light on his workouts, his brief stint with veganism, his chef, the stone lion in his yard, his partner, his lotion, his cronies, his cars and occasionally, his biographer.

I met Khaled through his literary agent who was also my agent. I have said this before but this always reminds me of when the former rapper (and current Belizean politician) Shyne Po and Puffy had the same defense attorney for the nightclub shooting on West 43rd street where J.Lo was famously present. Which is to say Shyne went to prison and Puff did not.

Which is only to say that the same agent should not have been handling both deals.*

As Khaled’s star was rising, the book deals inevitably arrived and my name quickly made the short list. Years later I’d find out how much Khaled made on the deal and while that figure is not my business to share, what I can say is that I was offered about $25ishK and had six weeks to turn it in. It felt doable. I could sense the momentum and had always been a fast writer. They put me up in the St. Regis for three nights and I knew that if I could get even two hours with him every day, I would have enough for a business book of aphorisms that would not only chronicle his origin story but give color to his life.

The long and short is that it was classic rap shit and he ignored me for all three days as I skulked around his house. I eventually elbowed my way onto his tour bus so I could get time with him on his way to Atlanta. At this stage of his life DJ Khaled was afraid of flying and this ended up being a gift.** I interviewed his parter Nicole, his right hand Kiko, his photographer and videographer Ivan, as well as many of his friends. I still have Fat Joe’s number in my phone from that time and both Cool and Dre’s. I also have Big Boi from Outkast’s number in my phone but that was from something else.

The longer, longer story is that I observed DJ Khaled for about 8 or 9 days total, this trip and later when he came to New York. I blended into the decor, threading my way through the crowds that clamored towards him like fast zombies for “fan luv,” I overheard his conversations, he was constantly calling people, and learned who this man was beyond the phrases.

I also thought about the shape the book should take and was grateful for having launched several magazines by then. Each key would be a chapter, that much I’d discussed with the publisher since a formal book proposal didn’t exist, but I would have to run them with some sense of chronology which would be supported by interstitials, interviews with his friends to give context but also heft.***

Mostly I watched DJ Khaled, obstinately sitting in his sight line like a begrudging, plotting cat with my notebook and recorder. On day five of him not speaking to me, I decided I’d invoice him directly for more money since he was eating into my deadline. I’d seen how dedicated he was in securing the bag and wanted his attention. “I’m raising my rate,” I said. “I’m going to invoice Patty (his childhood friend who also ran operations at the time).”

He told me, and I’ll never forget this, that he had a special, tailor-made key for me:

Are you an artist? He asked me. I was startled by this sudden pop-quiz and hesitated. Of course you’re an artist, he said. I wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t an artist. But if you’re an artist don’t talk about money before you make the art, he advised. Make the art, then secure the bag. He went on to tell me to allow the agents, managers, lawyers to handle the details. And that even bringing business affairs into the room was compromising the potential magic of the art.

At the time I balked, dismissing this bespoke key as the oily justification of a scammer but whenever I’ve had occasion to be reminded of this moment in the intervening decade, I see how right he’d been. It’s only now that I think about how DJ Khaled is also the first person to call me an artist.

Inside me there are two wolves. One is belligerent and capable of greatness. I refer to this part of me as The Tank. She is instinctive, impulsive, persuasive and not easily intimidated. There is a single-minded dedication to any task, any vision. She rarely questions the goal, the conviction is unwavering. Mostly, she moves her body and words in alignment with abject trust. It never occurs to her that we may fail. It certainly doesn’t occur to her to be intimidated or humiliated as an end result for having tried. Weirdly, there’s genuine equanimity to the objective as well. Whenever I interrogate this part, the results are reminiscent of this:

Every response is: “*”

It’s always giving, Well, what the fuck else would we be doing?

I could also call this part my inner DJ Khaled because the essence is exactly the same.

Then there is the part that is highly analytical. I hate to describe this part as autistic but it’s far more reminiscent of this:

This part is constantly plotting, scheming, testing, modeling. Picture a single, incredibly busy worker bee in a long-abandoned factory bustling about making costumes and disguises and masks, straining desperately to think her way into becoming a one-person LLM, analyzing all possible permutations of future scenarios to become a competent enough predictive tool to know the success rate of the outcome before committing to a single action. This part is utterly unaware that the only reason the “viral content strategist” seated in the above reel is so confident is that she and the inset “viral content creator” are on different timelines.

Stay away from ‘They.’

Oh, god, how all of this is ‘They.’

Pool House comes out in less than one week. I’ve noticed that in interviews so far I’ve largely talked about how difficult the book was to write. The fear that is knotted in my chest. It’s this sabotaging, recoiling instinct to perform exactly the opposite of the gleaming, cold perfection of the peptides x AI world that I see.

And for some reason I think about how when Khaled was ignoring me—we eventually found a process that worked for us; each day I would read aloud the ‘dailies’ to see if he hated it in real time—he remained kind. And whenever I successfully secured his attention, he rewarded me with something startlingly brilliant and that often took a few days to reveal itself to me.

During the time I spent with him, he got the call that Beyoncé wanted him to open for her on tour. He shot a series of ads (one with Neal Brennan that I was particularly impressed about). He was already on tour for his own album. He’d received a Roc Nation chain. He’d only just discovered he was going to be a father.

He knew this moment would dictate the course of the next chapter of his life. Life is what you make it so let’s make it.

I think I’ve been talking about how hard Pool House was to write to insulate myself from future disappointment. As if to say that the difficulty was somehow a clue or a hint, that I should have known it was doomed from the start.

The very busy worker bee is wringing her hands, ready to pack it in even before the book has come out. Meanwhile, the Tank is bashing about wondering when we’re getting our new assignment.

Don’t complain. Complaints are excuses and excuses are for the weak-hearted.

Which is to say:

WIN, WIN, WIN NO MATTER WHAT!

*For as salty as I was about me and Khaled having the same agent, it’s how I got the job.

**After I finished this book, I brokered a meeting between Khaled and Tony Robbins so that Tony could help him with his fear of flying and he did. Khaled now flies mostly private but he flies.

***I am just now realizing as I write this that the format of Pool House—the revolving POVs with short, mini chapters in between—most closely resembles DJ Khaled’s book. I find this both hilarious and incredibly moving. Oh, no I am crying!

Some other things.

Over the next few days, a bunch of profiles and essays and interviews will be coming out that I am excited about. High Snobiety just printed a fashion essay and it’s beautiful.

The artwork by the wonderful Anna Haifisch is especially evocative and I’m so happy that Noah Johnson, Claire Landsbaum and Delia Cai thought of me for it.

“They try to tell me that Quiet Luxury is dead and it’s a lie. It’s inside me. It will not detonate like a spore; it lacks the drama or the myopia to destroy its host outright. Rather, it will continue to leech its influence like contaminants into groundwater forever and ever long after I’m dead. Quiet luxury is microplastics.”

Speaking of Delia, she very kindly just published a “How I Made This Book,” with me over at Deez Links.

“Writers are so greedy. We’re just constantly hungry. It’s what makes the work so difficult. But I’m so interested in things, and I want to know how they work, and I think curiosity is the only way any of this is worth it, because I think existence is a terrible, terrible slog. Being — sentience, largely — is a curse. And so being able to transmute that or alchemize that into something else is the only solace.”

God, I’m so annoying.

If you want a signed and personalized copy of Pool House but cannot make it to any of my tour dates, please order one from Books are Magic. They ship nationally and the deadline for this is June 5 at 4PMish when I go over there to sign them.

In other, other news, I am also, weirdly, reading Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist with Traci Thomas at the Stacks for her book club pick of the month (find our amazing talk about Pool House here!). I am a big fan of reading a random book timing-wise and we’d both agreed, despite both having read it ages ago and recalling having hated it, that we’d suspend judgment as much as we could. I won’t comment on specifics of how we fared (not great!) but there was a part I was moved by.

“They continued across the desert. With every day that passed, the boy’s heart became more and more silent. It no longer wanted to know about things of the past or future; it was content simply to contemplate the desert, and to drink with the boy from the Soul of the World. The boy and his heart had become friends, and neither was capable now of betraying the other.”

This idea that my heart and I might one day be friends really makes me cry. I really think it’s possible. I feel that I am close.

I’ve already listened to my heart. I’ve already heeded my Personal Legend and the Soul of the World! The book is done!