Wale Attention Deficit Pitchfork Review: 6.6/10

Wale Attention Deficit Pitchfork Review: 6.6/10

It’s no secret that the Internet is hurting rappers. Hurting their record sales. Hurting their ability to control narrative. And, perhaps most crucially, hurting their ability to self-edit. Flip cam freestyles, track-a-day mixtapes, local radio interviews delivered worldwide. Reining it in has never been more difficult. To his credit, Wale has appeared to be in clear control of his output. In the space of three years he’s released three proper mixtapes: 2007’s giddy grab bag 100 Miles & Running, 2008’s triumphant and savvy The Mixtape About Nothing, and this year’s modest Back to the Feature. But even that tempered rollout may have been too much. Wale’s proper solo debut, Attention Deficit, feels like a mishmash of those three tapes, flashing greatness but almost never transcending, and always sounding effortful. Has he said too much already?

I really love how when I essentially gave the same rating in my review, all of Wale’s boyfriends went apeshit on me (had bitchfits) in the comments. Give me a break. You’d think I was shitting on The Beetles/Weezer/Radiohead, or in other words, a musician(s) whom had a cult following, and it made sense.

It shows how much anticipation there was for this album, the founder of Ben’s Chili Bowl in DC, couldn’t even live long enough to listen to the cd, he died a month ago. Surely, surely if there was true DC anticipation for this record, then Ben would have stayed alive long enough to listen to this, before he passed on, so he could tell 2pac and Billie Holiday how much the album rox0red. Not.

100 Yawns, and Sleeping.

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Permalink Posted in: dc, hip-hop, music Comments(0) November 11, 2009