 B.o.B. aka Bobby Ray | Big Sean  |
My next album will have nothing for the ladies or a party record. It’s just the music. It’s a body of work.
Olubowale “Wale” Akintimehin is anxious. His major label debut, Attention: Deficit (Allido/Interscope), is done and he can’t wait for you to hear and love it when it’s released this summer. After dropping a series of mixtapes, capped by the stellar Seinfeld-inspired The Mixtape About Nothing in 2008, the D.C. rhymer is ready show what he’s really got. During his promo run, Wale, 24, phoned in to talk about his album, his Twitter addiction, and how his fans brighten up bad days.
VIBE: What are some cuts on the album that people should check for?
Wale: Awww man, the D.C. and Maryland stuff. I got a record called “Mirrors” with Mark Ronson. “World Tour,” the other Cool & Dre record that I got on the album. “Be Right” is a story of normal things that are bad but they’re not the worst. In life, you get more bad problems than “the worst” situations. You graduate from college with a master’s and you can’t find no job or you got money and you’re chilling and you party everyday and you find out your girlfriend is pregnant. You’re a girl and you break up with your man and you want to go to the club but you still keep thinking about him and you keep going through your phone to see if he calls yet. You’re waiting to exhale but you looking through your phone trying to get your ex’s cell. That’s a record that I’m particularly excited about. I got this one called “90210,” which is kind of my story about the Paris Hiltons and [Kim] Kardashian types or the girl that moves from any town in America and goes to Beverly Hills and does anything for everything. That’s the underlying theme of the record. I’m excited about the whole project, man.
What are the influences behind these records?
It’s a combination of things that I’ve experienced being from the D.C. area and traveling the world with Mark Ronson, getting to know rappers and people in the industry. Mixtape About Nothing was about the industry. Attention: Deficit is about life as I know it. I haven’t been this exited about anything since I graduated from high school. It’s a big event. It’s called Attention: Deficit because there’s a deficit in attention in music. Everything is so disposable. A lot of ground is covered three or four times per album. This album—nothing is covered twice. If you want the feel-good songs, or the one for the ladies, nah, it ain’t nothing like that. I don’t make albums like, “Okay, we got a party record, we got the one for the ladies.” Nah. A lady can relate to the whole album because the lady has a heart and a soul, but so does a man.
So you’re more into the stories than targeting a specific audience when you write?
Yeah. I have a record called “Her Diary.” I’m talking about a woman. The man is the muse of the song essentially, [but] he can relate to it as well because he’s the one that put the woman through the problems but the woman is the one who feels it. So if you have a heart and a soul, you understand it and you feel it, so it’s not necessarily for the ladies. Making the album strategically is wack to me. I think you just let your soul speak, you let your heart speak. Like Quincy Jones said, you go in the studio at the crack of dawn like, I got this. That’s exactly what you got to do. My next album will have nothing for the ladies or a party record. It’s just the music. It’s a body of work. It’s music.
Everybody has a different feeling about getting on and adjusting to fame. How are you dealing with it?
I don’t really take it seriously, man. A lot of these dudes, they take their success too seriously. It’s about paying dues, man. Some of the young dudes might have more of a buzz than some of the older dudes that have been in it, but that doesn’t mean that you’re more relevant than them. If they talk to you, you’ve got to show them that respect.
Noreaga called me yesterday and we talked on the phone for an hour. That meant so much to me because he’s an O.G. in the game. I talk to Bun B everyday. [I ask things like] “How can I become a better artist? How can I be a better person? How can I be as respected as you one day?” I think a lot of these dudes ain’t really taking…they not really understanding, dog…we’re new, man. I’m 24. I got a long way to go before I can start acting like I’m famous. Where I come from they’ll call you out. We can’t walk around like we’re too good. I don’t play for the Redskins or the Wizards. I’m a rapper. I put my shoes on and my pants on like everybody else does. I go to the schools, I don’t ask for no money. I sign autographs. I stay there until everybody has two autographs because I feel that you have to do that. There are people that would die to be in the position that I’m in right now.
I’m on a 40-city tour man. I ain’t going to lie, I made a lot of money on the road but this is promo man.... This is promo before the promo. I’m doing it because I know I have to. If I believed in my fame where I accepted my fame to that point, I wouldn’t do it. It’s not about the money. It’s about paying your dues. It’s about connecting with the people. They be like, “Why do you Twitter so much, Wale?” Because I want my fans to know that I’m a real person, man. I don’t have a job. I don’t sit at a desk all day, so why not talk to my fans, just at work? Why not talk to my fans at school, Twittering when they should be studying? I don’t have nothing else to do but be for the people, man. Last year this time I had the biggest buzz as an unsigned artist, this time, I don’t. The people that are hot now, next thing there’s going to be somebody else. You gotta make it where you connecting with the people, the whole time, because when that other person comes, you gotta be ready for [some fans] to be like, I like this person more than you. If you don’t have any level of humility then they’re not going to respect you. They’re not going to care.
Do have any highlights in terms of experiences with fans?
Just like today, I was having a bad day. I pull out my driveway, and I was driving. I was at a stoplight—my car is fairly tinted—and a group of high school girls pull up to me. I’m having a bad day, mind you. When you start to become a public figure, you have to use your peripheral vision at the light and I look at the girls and they’re like, Oh my God, that’s Wale! I can hear them through the music and everything. So she comes over and I’m like, “Hey, how are you doing?” She’s like, “Oh my God, Wale.” She starts taking pictures and at that time, it touched me. They’re like, “Hold on, hold on.” They start playing the leaked version of “Chillin’” and they start going crazy. That changed my whole day and that’s more than any money that anybody can give me. To know that you touch people like that, they’re like, “Wale, come to my church, please, we’re doing a play on Friday,” that’s what touches me. That’s what makes me feel like I’m living right.
Press Play to listen to "Family Affair" from Wale's upcoming mixtape, Back to the Feature
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