Wale

Olubowale Folarin, better known by his stage name Wale, is a Nigerian-American hip hop artist. He rose to prominence in 2006, when his song "Dig Dug " became popular in Washington, D.C. Wale has released five widely recognized mixtapes. His first full length album, Attention Deficit, was released on November 10, 2009.


Wale was born in Washington, DC. He graduated from Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg in 2001, after which he moved to Largo, Maryland. Wale attended Bowie State University, Robert Morris University and Virginia State University. "Dig Dug " became popular in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The song became the most requested song by a local artist in D.C. radio history and Wale was the first local artist to get any BDS spins since DJ Kool in the early 1990s. The song was included in Wale's first mixtape, Paint a Picture.

In July 2006, Wale hired Daniel Weisman, a former club DJ and promoter, as his manager. In September 2006, after dropping another go-go influenced single, "Breakdown", sampled from Huck-a-Bucks "Sexy Girl", and a mention in The Washington Post, Wale released his first non-go-go original single, "Uptown Roamers." On September 14, 2006, "Uptown Roamers" debuted on XM Radio Channel 66 and was played twice in one day. Both "Breakdown" and "Uptown Roamers" were on Wale's second mixtape, Hate Is the New Love. Wale's song "Breakdown," was featured on the video game Madden NFL 2009.

In early December 2006, Wale won the award for "D.C. Metro Breakthrough Artist of the Year" at WKYS' Go-Go Awards. On December 15, The Fader magazine associate editor Nick "Catchdubs" Barat visited Wale for an interview and photo shoot which appeared in the March 2007 issue of The Fader.


In January 2007, Wale released a new single to radio called "Good Girls" produced by Gerard Thomas and Demario Bridges for TeamMusicGroup. Daniel Weisman gave the song to Mark Ronson and on February 23, 2007, Ronson began playing the song on his East Village Radio show. A week later, at Ronson's studio, Wale recorded a freestyle for Ronson and in exchange, Ronson put Wale on an unreleased remix of Lily Allen's "Smile" which appeared on a number of music blogs around the world on March 13, 2007. In April 2007, Ronson asked Wale to join him on a UK tour to promote the release of his newest album. In June 2007, Wale signed to a production deal with Ronson's Allido Records.

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