Academik

You remember the first time that you heard Kanye West and you thought, woh, this is dope. I haven’t heard productions like this in a while. Where Chicago’s Kanye took old school samples and re-worked them to create his sound, D.C.’s Wale takes the latest and greatest producers/beats and flows over them on his latest mixtape, 100 miles and running. Enlisting one of the moment’s hottest producers/remixers, Nick Catchdubs, to mix the tracks, Wale rhymes over Justice’s DANCE, Gorillaz’ Dirty Harry, Camp Lo’s Luchini (my ringtone) and works with producers like Mark Ronson, Judah, and Best Kept Secret.

His rhymes range from played out bling to funny pop culture references to insightful lines on human behavior. My favorite so far is on WALEDANCE, “Acquire more bras than Zachary Morris, y’all all screech to me, you’ve unleashed the beast, and I’ll play you little brothas like Lisa, shit.” He doesn’t take himself too seriously which is nice considering how many huge egos there are in the game (Kanye, Diddy, Jay-Z, Nas).

Check out the mixtape here and his MySpace. Standouts are DC Gorillaz, Daytona Squared, and WALEDANCE, but listen and make your own decisions.