“Clappers”, which borrows from legendary band EU’s classic Go-Go song “Da Butt”, ft. Though Wale has made a clear effort to not be pegged as a niche Go-Go rapper, the music at its core is party music and when Wale does go all in 100% with the Go-Go sound it’s ironically resulted in some of his most well received songs both locally and commercially. Certain times he simply tries too hard and throwing in punch lines about prevent defenses just seem out of place. Rihanna are both very well done songs but an instance of a weakness of Wale’s. “Gullible” being another standout of the first half of the album with Wale spitting “But not before I gave birth to several episodes/Our generation is cursed we got too many clones/We just believe and gonna repeat what we was told/ And all the bullets are prodigal to the gullible” Yo Gotti and Lyfe Jennings is a song where the titles may be misleading but definitely worth both the listen and the message Wale gets across though “Vanity” is a definite miss and should have been scrapped. “Golden Salvation” (Jesus Piece), another standout on the album, finds Wale tapping into another talent of his which is concept songs from another person’s first person perspective. “Sunshine” and “Heaven’s Afternoon” which actually has Meek Mill using his inside voice find Wale once again flowing effortlessly over the music and still delivering lyrically. “I lost a lot of friends and they ain’t even dead/When I was on my way up why you ain’t see the stairs/Lord father if I opted to follow them/My heart would tear for my dreams let me know that you hear”. The second single “Love/Hate Thing” being a standout among them and showcasing Wale’s biggest strength which has always been his vulnerability expressed through his lyrics. One thing Wale has always taken advantage of is the use of Go-Go music, and live instruments in his music and from the intro through the first half of the album it works well. If you’ve heard Wale promoting this album he’s been using the phrase “new black soul” to describe the theme musically of the album. The album starts off with, what else, a short skit about haters that leads into the intro “The Curse of The Gifted”. Wale’s third album The Gifted seeks to answer all those questions. Through two commercial albums and countless mixtapes it’s still hard for many to get a grasp on just who Wale is other than a guy who is real easy to make mad on Twitter. Even though commercially Ambition was more successful and gave Wale more mainstream recognition he’s still managed to be plagued by the criticism of being a “pseudo intellectual who tries too hard”. Most of them don’t even know what that is.” His first album Attention Deficit wasn’t well received, commercially speaking, but his follow up Ambition which saw him switch to a more southern, trap style beat selection was much more successful. As my younger brother who is 21, and a Wale fan himself, said “Dudes my age don’t care about a double entendre. If you ask most people late twenties and up you will probably see Scarface and Devin The Dude and Bun B ranked as the favorite rappers.Įnter Wale whose style lends itself to the very East Coast rap style the majority of his own city does not openly embrace. There’s a reason one of Wale’s favorite topics is the “haters in his home who don’t support him”. Even when it comes to rap music the climate here has always lent itself more too southern and west coast rappers than East Coast rappers.
If you want to be a well known rapper here you have a better chance of it happening being in a Go-Go band than actually being a traditional rapper.
See there’s a rule here in DC, I was born in DC and have lived and around the city my entire life and that is that our own homegrown Go-Go music, centered on percussions and a conga set up unique to Go-Go music alone, rules above all. Wale is in the midst of accomplishing something no other rapper from Washington, DC has done before, be successful.
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