Fighter: Wale
Trainer (Gym): (Maybach Music Group, Atlantic Records, Every Blue Moon)
Cut Men: No Credit, JGramm, Jake One, DJ Khalil, Soundz, Osinachi, Pro Reese, AyyDot, Marce Reazon DJ Dahi, Rex Kudo, Idan Kalai, Best Kept Secret, Sonny Digital, Dave Bayley, Stokley Williams
Weight Class: Rap Superstar/Lyrical Heavyweight
Notable Fire: The Helium Balloon, The Girls On Drugs, The God Smile
Notable Trash: The White Shoes, The One Time In Houston
Tale of the Tape: You don’t really hear about him going into the booth and just messing around. There are no wasted ideas, bars or songs. Now four albums in, Wale has made it clear takes his craft extremely seriously, perhaps more than any other rapper. His craft includes the poetry of his lyrics, the composition of his music and the concepts he authors.
After releasing arguably the best album of 2013, The Gifted, Wale appeared to enter this project in a bit of a transitional period; from rap star to rap superstar, from Maybach Music soldier to stand alone artist with MMG ties (which he interestingly addressed on “The Middle Finger”), from observational emcee to introspective emcee. On a personal note, Wale’s cousin was murdered and he suffered through the miscarriage of a child— real life events that unfortunately happen to too many of us. This, along with the trials and tribulations of his everyday life as a rap star served as the backdrop for The Album About Nothing.
An avid Jerry Seinfeld and Seinfeld fan (kind of hard to be a fan of one and not the other), Wale once again (see his past catalog) reached out to his near-billionaire buddy comedian to act as the album’s narrator, or a Wale described him, “his conscious”. For those unfamiliar, the show Seinfield was famously described as, “a show about nothing”, with its humor primarily found within the subtle nuances of life. Of course, its the little things that make up life, so a show about nothing or The Album About Nothing is in actuality all about life.
Success, vanity, friendship, drug abuse, stripper chicks, romance, love, sex and marriage— you name it, Wale addressed it. As a result, Folarin gets more personal on this LP than we’re accustomed to seeing, specifically on songs such as “The Matrimony”, “The Middle Finger”, among others. The breadth of content, complete with Seinfield-ian metaphors peppered throughout, made for an extremely mature project.
Sidebar: Personally, I was never a big fan of Seinfeld. But I respect his and Larry David’s humor. I did enjoy Jerry linking up with my favorite comedian for an addition of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Having said that, if someone were to make an album based entirely around The Wire or The Simpsons, I’d be all in.
Like many rappers, Wale was not afraid to dive deep into his issues with women. However, he takes a slightly different approach by focusing on “the type of women he be dealing with” on “The Girls On Drugs“, a song literally about girls on drugs and everything that entails. Wale revealed that he himself dabbled in dope following the miscarriage on “The Middle Finger”, a promising record that was corrupted by a terrible hook. He takes the listener through the impossible dating scene for a rap star in 2015, with secrecy being a deal-breaker, according to “The Need To Know”. Wale also takes a few jabs at fame in a particularly creative way on “The Helium Balloon”.
Sidebar: If you haven’t noticed, Wale has christened each song title with “The” as a prefix, akin to every Seinfeld episode.
There’s a special feeling you get when you discover something truly remarkable, but the masses aren’t aware of it yet. It’s as if you’re part of a clandestine group of the enlightened— the exclusivity being as alluring as the talent itself. Internally, you struggle with whether or not you want to see that commodity reach the highest levels of success because your run-of-the-mill ham-and-eggers become fans, causing it to become corny. This is essentially what Wale is calling out on “The Helium Balloon”. His core fans made him a star, yet hold his success against him. Never one to come off modest, Wale unapologetically refuses to let his this concept impede his progress.
Honestly, who didn’t want to rock this belt as a kid?
Unlike The Gifted however, The Album About Nothing doesn’t posses the firepower to drive Wale’s ascent to the top. It may even derail it.
None of the beats on the LP are fire, very few are anything more than bland. While The Gifted had tracks like “88”, “Golden Salvation” and “Heaven’s Afternoon”, nothing on TAAN takes you anywhere close to these dramatic arrangements. Perhaps Wale was intentionally going for a different sound on this record— if so, it comes at the expense of pure entertainment.
At times, TAAN will struggle to hold your attention. While Ralph’s took a holistic approach content-wise, lyrically the album left something to be desired. As done occasionally on The Gifted, Wale warps his words that don’t actually rhyme far too often for someone with his lyrical acumen.
On “Helium Balloons” for example, the following couplets, “See that the line’s been beastin’/The main attraction, I got ’em hangin’ their cleats up/I’ve been keepin’ it G/It’s levels to this fellow, hello, I resemble the cheat codes” do not actually rhyme. Wale does his best to make it sound cool, but the more he utilizes this rhyme scheme, the more it either comes off as unimaginative, or even worse, just plain lazy. Either way, it’s frustrating for the listener. Emcees who consider themselves to be at the head of the class shouldn’t have to tamper with sounds like this.
However, this is all part of the Wale package. He truly is a poet, more so than most rappers and even more than most elite lyricists. But being poetic will often open the door to a non-traditional style of lyricism, or putting out songs like “This One Time In Houston”, which probably would’ve been way better had Drake made it. In any case, Wale’s music is often more like spoken word over beats than classic rap. That is where his brand of music draws a line in the sand for most consumers. Either you rock with it or you don’t. Period.
Fight Night: Draw
TAAN is not without its brainy wordplay. And on occasion, Wale strips away the craftiness and gives you bars that are straight up honest. On the same track as the aforementioned couplets, Wale speaks, “Gave you a contract, stay true through all that/Came through with Ross, writin’ bangers for y’all/But I ain’t lose my content, fuck all that nonsense”. This is all factual information. “The Pessimist” was also one of the project’s stronger lyrical efforts. Folarin then dropped this gem on “The God’s Smile”:
“Word up, pray to God that my set good/Stand close to my rivals/Like you got a job they would kill for/It’s all good cause the flow is to die for/My God, nigga life like a dice roll/And it’s twice hard throwin’ ’em with mics on/I hit ’em with the rap, everybody slept/Then I came back, killin’ everybody’s nap like a hot comb”
The irony of this record is that despite intentionally bland title, not one of these 14 songs operated on the margins of rap music. Nothing was exceptionally dope or wack. Even completing the “Notable Fire/Trash” section of this review was arduous— no song inspires overt love or hatred. That is, unless you already love or hate Wale. His appreciation for his discipline is evidenced through his borrowing from R. Kelly, Musiq Soulchild (aka “The Husel”…still hilarious), Janet Jackson and Nas at various points on this LP. But whatever he does, some people are just gonna hate Wale regardless.
Sidebar: He also sampled a legendary Issac Hayes record on “The Glass Egg”. Unrelated: It also seemed somewhat shallow that he ended this project with “The Body”.
The Album About Nothing comes at an interesting time in Wale’s career. He beefed and made up with MMG labelmate Meek Mill (beef apparently being Meek’s M.O. these days) and he bounced from Roc Nation’s management umbrella to link up with 77 North Management — based out of Akron, OH and led by LeBron James’ boy Maverick Carter — last August. His gallivanting around with Seinfield earned him a #WaleOnSeinfield look on TBS. Now he’s teaming up with Michelle Obama on the Reach Higher Initiative. And although this record was not the most stellar of his career, TAAN did debut at #1 on the charts, further solidifying Wale as one of the premier acts within hip-hop.
And yet he’s still the same guy who constantly screams for more recognition and raps about materialism while showing up at The Breakfast Club rocking jewelry, a grill and an Ultimate Warrior replica WWF heavyweight championship belt. It seems as though if he’s ever going to sway the opinions of those who still place him in a category below the apex of the rap food chain, Wale will have to give us a little more than nothing.