"My name's Wal-AY, don't say Wal-EE!!"
Man, I am so obsessed with this guy right now. The title of this post is the first lyric of his song "Breakdown," and you will hear why he is the next big thing in hip hop right now. Wale (that's actually how he spells his name) is a young (24) rapper out of D.C. (my hometown!! what what!!!) and he was recently on XXL's cover, and on everyone's top ten lists for rappers to watch in 2009. He has only released mixtapes until now, but this spring he releases his first album, and everyone is waiting for it to DROP, so to speak.
Hip Hop heads are excited about Wale because his lyrics are SMART, he is witty and clever with his music choices (for example - one of his mixtapes is called "The Mixtape about Nothing" and he raps over clips and the theme song from Seinfeld...it's funny and ridiculously well written), and he raps over this D.C. rhythm called go-go. It's the drum beat you hear in "Breakdown," and it's infectious. He is the first emcee to come out of D.C. as well, and so he is considered an ambassador for go-go and D.C. rap. I saw him live in D.C. when I was there for the inauguration and everyone went nuts for him. The other song I am uploading is W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E, a cover/remix that speaks for itself.
p.s. Sorry I have been MIA from the club, it was good to meet a lot of you at Jay's the other day, and I hope these songs redeem myself!
p.p.s. I took the photo of Wale on this post...I was so close to him! it was awesome.
Wow, February has a second candidate for post-of-the-year. This is really cool sh!t.
ReplyDeleteTook the picture yourself? Damn.
You guys have brought out the big guns for February. Nice.
P.S. Martina - if you had to pick one song for the actual disc, I'm guessing you'd go with the non-remix? (ie Breakdown?). We have a bit of a one-song-per-artist-per-month policy. I hope that's okay.