The Immersion: Paying Attention to Wale Posted by Dharmic X on 04/25/13 | Filed under Opinion, Wale, The Immersion

There are some rappers whom you fall in love with the minute they clear their throat over the microphone, or tell Guru to "turn their mic up." There are other rappers whom you love to hate ten seconds into the beat dropping on their bullshit jingle.

And then you have Wale Folarin.

My introduction to the DMV rapper came in the summer of 2009, and four years later, the jury is still out for me on whether I like him. Truthfully, I don't think I will ever form a strong opinion on him. For the most part he makes either decently good music or decently bad music. Perhaps it makes sense that the first project of his I listened to was Back to the Feature, where he was largely overshadowed by some of my favorite emcees, such as Royce da 5'9", Joell Ortiz and Joe Budden.



Then came "Chillin," his single with Lady Gaga that just continues to send mixed messages to this day. I thought it was okay on the whole; for me, the best part of the track was the video, part of which was shot in Boston and had a 2 second cameo of a friend in it. I tried to take "Attention Deficit seriously". But for every track like the previously mentioned "Beautiful Bliss," there was "Pretty Girls." That said, there were two joints that stuck out as notable.



“Diary” is a track that features a powerful hook from Marsha Ambrosius. Wale does a great job tackling the insecurities of a woman navigating the perils of living in present-day society. He is pretty open and honest on this song, empathizing with the coldness he receives from trying to reach out to someone, understanding that even though he sees himself as different from some of the thirstier or more exploitative men out there, she won’t be able to see that from her vantage point. Not necessarily a song I could personally relate to, but the song cuts deep regardless.



The second song happened to come out around the time of "Attention Deficit", but did not actually make the album. “Letter” takes a smooth beat and a great hook from John Mayer and finds Wale flip the hook into a song where he pens two letters, one to President Obama and the second to 2Pac. Both verses find Wale challenging notions of race in America while coming to a better understanding of his own identity, while identifying the legacy of these two historic and iconic figures in the last twenty years of America.

As dope as Wale’s version of “Letter” was, it did not move me nearly as much as another version of the same song…