Culture Blues

News About Nothing

Yesterday, D.C. rapper Wale dropped the follow up to his 2008 Seinfeld-inspired The Mixtape About Nothing with a mixtape that falsely promises More About Nothing.

This isn't a bad thing though. The fact is Wale has a lot to talk about. He's always been talented, bringing together precise wordplay with drum-heavy D.C. beats. But 2009's studio album Attention Deficit suffered from a variety of problems (including sucking) and went Quadruple Dinnerplate.

In the opening track, The Problem, Wale wastes no time addressing the menacing SoundScan reports for Attention Deficit (he largely blamed under shipment):

Then ’09 came

Them bad record sales

The silver lining, couldn’t find them up on any shelf

I’m in the mirror like ‘this a product of my skills?’

And I fear that my fans say I failed

The beat drops and he goes in.

The rest of the mixtape does a good job of ranging from this sort of intense subject matter to Wale’s softer more relaxed side. There are references and sound clips from Seinfeld interspersed and he also adds a little more spoken word to his songs and interludes. While I find that admirable to an extent, it’s kind of corny because I couldn’t stop thinking about DMX’s prayer interludes from It’s Dark and Hell is Hot and time hasn’t really been kind to those at all (“You give me strength, and that’s deep”).

I’m a fan of Wale, so I’m happy to see him put out good music again. Interscope clearly made mistakes with his last studio release, so I hope he gets another legit crack at it.