By now most of you have heard of Wale or could easily name the song to the following lyrics, “D.C. chillin’ P.G. Chillin’ my name Wale and I came to get it.” The D.C. anthem that’s been spreading like wildfire throughout the nation thanks to rap sensation Wale, a Washingtonian and Lady Gaga. Wale has been on the music scene since 2005, gaining notoriety through mix tapes. Four years later, Wale finally released his full length album, Attention Deficit, which hit stores in February of this year. The rapper graces the cover of Honey this month and dishes about his album, fame and his girlfriend Solange.
On Attention Deficit
“This is my biography,” Wale says of Attention: Deficit, which leaked a couple of weeks before it’s official date. “It’s honest. Raw emotion. It’s close to me. That’s why part of me will be a little offended if it doesn’t get heard. I don’t want people to take lack of sales as me taking a hit. This is something different. My label is letting me put out an album with a single that released seven months ago. We’re not going for first week sales. We only shipping out 30,000 of them. We’re going for that grind. We’re showing people that you can build a fanbase the old fashioned way.”
On his peers
“I got work to do before I even catch up to Cudi and Drake,” he admits. “They’ve progressed a little bit quicker than I have. I worked twice as hard because I wasn’t fortunate enough to be under a successful rapper to inherit some of their fan base. I had to work for it all and my city had to hold me down.”
On his female fans
“I think people try too hard to market to females,” says Wale. “They insult their intelligence. I feel like there are going to be a lot of females who miss out on some great music on my album just because I wasn’t a huge radio artist.”
On relationships
“It’s about the intangibles in 2010,” he says. “The superficial shit is cool – like, yeah she can fuck, or she got a big butt. That’s the x factor. We’re not going to have sex 24/7 so we need to be friends. I want a girl who you could hijack all her extra artificial cosmetics for a week and not even notice. Somebody who’s smart and can stimulate me mentally because when you on the road it’s not like you can look at ‘em or touch ‘em. I can’t stand girls who don’t challenge their intellect. It don’t hurt if she can sing a little bit.”
“It would be nice to settle down,” Wale says. “I wish that was coming soon. I’ve done a lot, man. I have no interest in accidentally getting a groupie pregnant, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t want to be the 50-year-old pops. I wanna be like, Yo, I’m bout to take off tour, go fly to see the wife, the girl, the kids or whatever I got, then come back to this bullshit-ass lifestyle with all these fair-weather friends. It’s about real love.”
On Solange (Honey’s October Cover Girl)
“I do love her,” he admits of Solange, flashing a Cheshire. “We’re friends. She’s amazing. She’s a good person. Any single mother contributing to society the way she does – I got a lot of love for them. She’s got to do a lot on her own and raise a young black man in this day and age so my hat goes off to her. She’s definitely an anomaly. And the way she can do that and manage to do the same things that I complain about having to do.”
His affection is as obvious as a set of flushed cheeks. And impossibly adorable. Wale, the former mixtape rapper from inner city DC, is borderline giddy. “Did you interview Solange about me?” Wale asks. He’s sprawled across his bed; head practically buried in the pillow. “Did she smile when you mentioned my name?”
