8/10
Great debut album. Almost better than Kid Cudi's, in my opinion. Cudi has one spot up on him on my list right now, and really it's only because he went and made an album with a style I've never heard anywhere before. But, back to Wale, this album is killer. I kind of expected less of him, to be honest. The dude's been putting out mixtapes like he has nothing better to do, and that material was really good (see: The Mixtape About Nothing), so I couldn't see him having anything left for the album, but I was wrong.
I wouldn't put it on the same level as something from Atmosphere or Mos Def, but it's not supposed to be as serious and conscious as those albums. It's just a good, mainstream rap album. With that said, its a little less mainstream than your everyday 50 Cent crap. (I'm not even listening to Before I Self Destruct, nevermind wasting time writing about it.) The production on the album is good, some songs better than others, particularly the two that Cool & Dre did. Lyrically, you have to listen to the album a couple times to be able to pick up on all of the great lines. My personal favorite, at the end of a verse in "TV in the Radio", goes "fat rhymes everytime, bitch, Roseanna Barrs". I mean, c'mon, that's amazing. Besides the fact that anyone under 20 probably doesn't know who Roseanne Barr is. The content isn't all fun and games, there are some more serious songs, like "Contemplate" and "Diary", which are also great. There are some good features, like K'Naan, J.Cole, and Pharrell, which significantly outway the bad, particularly Gucci Mane. Wale really proved himself to me with this one. You can tell he couldn't be happier with doing what he's doing. And he does it really well.
Check out these links to my favorite track on the album, "World Tour", and "Contemplate":
World Tour (ft. Jazmine Sullivan)
Contemplate
No comments:
Post a Comment