Hip-Hop Week: Wale

It appears that unintentionally, each day my pick is someone progressively more widely-known. Today is Maryland-based (and son of Nigerian parents) Wale, but he's associated with Washington, D.C. He's been steadily building up a fan base by releasing 5 mixtapes for free since 2006. His first album is supposed to come out next month.

My favorite mixtape by Wale is Mixtape About Nothing. You can download it for free on his myspace. As the title indicates, it is inspired by Seinfeld, a show that Wale says he has seen every episode of 30 times. Wale tackles big issues while peppering the mixtape with clever references and even an appearance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. One of the stand-out tracks is "The Kramer," where he addresses Michael Richards racist tirade at the Laugh Factory.

Another personal favorite track is "The Perfect Plan" (noticing a pattern with the track titles? Seinfeld fans will). I even included this song on a mixtape I made for my students about the music industry.

Since embedding for this video is disabled, go here to check out the music video of Wale's "Chillin" featuring Lady GaGa.