DJ Khaled and son Asahd, who he says is his biggest style inspiration. PHOTO: CASSIDY SPARROW/GETTY
Forget the runway — DJ Khaled finds his fashion inspiration at home.
Ahead of the opening of his one-of-a-kind concept store We the Best x SNIPES, the producer, 47, chatted with PEOPLE and — ever the family man — Khaled could not help but bring up his eldest child.
Asked who is inspiring his personal style at the moment, the father of two sweetly tells PEOPLE, “Style-wise, I would have to say my son Asahd.”
The Grammy winner was quick to clarify that it is not just because “he’s my son.”
“But no, I’m for real,” he asserts. “Every morning [he] wakes me up with a pair of sneakers and he tells me these are the sneakers he’s going to wear. Or he’ll grab one of my sneakers that he doesn’t have and say he wants to get it.”
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DJ Khaled and son Asahd at the Grammy Awards in February 2023.
KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY
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Khaled raves, “My son is 6 years old, and how deep he is into sneaker culture is so amazing and I think it’s so beautiful.”
Asahd does not just inspire his dad’s style — he also keeps him connected to the “younger generation,” who Khaled says is “going to run the world” one day.
“The young kids, they’re the geniuses,” he says. “They’re the future. So I always go to the younger generation for inspiration from fashion, style, and even music.”
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Khaled also notes that while the music he creates “represents everybody,” he always feels better when sons Asahd and Aalam, 3, enjoy it.
“I always get the beautiful energy knowing if the kids love it,” he tells PEOPLE. “Like my son, I play my music to him all the time, he loves it.”
“The young generation run the world, which is beautiful,” he adds.
Asahd also gets a front-row seat to more than just his dad’s music. Days before Khaled was set to open the doors to his concept store with SNIPES — for whom he has been chief creative officer since 2019 — the 6-year-old got to scope it out.
“He went there before me,” Khaled says. “My son and my queen [fiancée Nicole Tuck], they were there earlier, just blessing the place and checking out the place.”
“He came back and gave me a report [on] how beautiful the place is,” he says of the Miami store. “And it’s a blessing, man.”
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Outside of their twin sneaker obsessions, Khaled previously shared that one of his and Asahd’s favorite father-son hobbies is driving in a golf cart together.
“We do this thing after lunch where we drive around together in the golf cart, just him and me,” Khaled told Parents in 2020. “That’s our time. He tells me everything he’s doing and what he’s been thinking about.
“And I talk to him about how proud we are of him and how good he’s doing in school, and how great he is at being a big brother. It’s real peaceful. It’s kind of our man-to-man time.”