Mixtape: Wale – Back To The Feature
So why did they scrap the cartoon cover? Was it the semi-eroticism of a manly embrace?
Wale f/ Bun B – “Talkin Shyt“
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from Back To The Feature (Mixtape, 2009)
I made some quick notes on this painfully competent Wale tape at the City Paper blog.
Tumblin' Erb
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
So I see you’ve gone from way less annoying version of Lupe you were genuinely excited about to painfully competent. I guess that’s fair. So much of the excitement around this guy seems to be based in the fact that he’s basically the first decent traditional east coast rapping rookie to come around in four years. So many of the others that a guy like DocZeus put his hopes in (Saigon, for example) flamed out, whereas this guy will clearly at least release an album one day.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
I mean I’d still be excited if Wale were to make the record about/of DC that he was hinting at early in his career. But it seems like that’s not his intent anymore. And let’s be real, the guy is NOT a rap star. But maybe he’ll swing a minor hit and be this generations Questionmark Asylum.
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
[...] See more here: Mixtape: Wale – Back To The Feature [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 am
Again I agree, but I wonder at what point it becomes a little, um… nativist, perhaps, for people like you or me to insist that rappers rap about DC or the Magnolia instead of just rapping about whatever they’d like to rap about? Granted, a critic can’t say “rap about whatever you like, it’s all indifferent to me,” but something makes me a little queasy about trying to put guys in the boxes of their respective localities. Though of course one of the reasons you or I care so much about rap is its sense of place and geography – but again I feel it’s a rapper’s perogative to abandon that if he chooses. Though he ought to replace it with something equally worthwhile, and it’s not at all clear that Wale’s doing that.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 am
It’s not simply subject matter, it’s about the sound and ideology of the city. His ability to translate that was his main selling point as a rapper, you take that away and he’s just a less compelling Black Thought type rapping for the sake of rapping.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:43 am
He’s a CUNT. The End.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 am
He’s borinh.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:40 am
I agree with you guys 100%…Noz i swear you be saying what im thinking..Wale just says words…but it doesnt connect with you….You know how Pimp C will say something so real you just feel it? Wale doesnt do that,,,,or how Wayne will say a punchline so clever you say dam?,,,Wale doesnt do that,,,,I just cant figure out what his niche is,,,,he doesnt make good club records,,no street records,,no deep introspective records,,,he just be saying stuff,,,but for some reason somebody must like it,,,or he wouldnt be relevant,,,,go figure,,,
if Wale can blow why cant Bossman or Skarr Akbar or Mullyman or Tim Trees?
Any local bmore people on here?
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
it’s funny I’ve been in New York for bout a week and I’ve heard his chillin single played AT LEAST three times a day..think it’s funny that song gets more spins up here than I’m DC. Probably cause it’s awful
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
That’s not funny at all!
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I played the shit out of that 100 Miles and Runnin’ mixtape, the go-go beats were amazing and you could tell Wale was having fun! For those of us who are complete novices when it comes to DC music, Wale did a lot in terms of introducing us to the go-go sound, even if it’s not authentic go-go (and I’m way out of my depth on this one, admittedly). But yeah, “Chillin’” SUCKS hard (pause), and this newest tape just isn’t on the same vibe as his earlier tapes. Strange that this leak and the B.o.B. leak come at around the same time. Could it be that pressure to create buzz through mixtapes BEFORE dropping an album could be killing these dudes creatively? Just think, what if Nas dropped Illmatic and It Was Written as mixtapes and I Am as his first album? I’m not in the know enough to know if there was a significant move to releasing mixtapes before the first album before 50 (maybe Loso, but that’s really reaching), but it seems to me that dudes use up their best shit too early, so once they actually drop an album they’ve alienated their core fanbase and they’re fucked. Of course, you could argue that if they were really great then it wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, matter, but seriously, who hasn’t fallen off towards the end? Bun, 40 Water and Mr. Carter certainly ain’t what they used to be.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
omg that is so FAAACKING gay, lmao
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:23 pm
aye Tray you hear that Saigno/ Statik Slektah album from this year?
Saigon trumps on Wale, that dude is the truth
June 24th, 2009 at 12:07 am
“His ability to translate [the sound and ideology of the city] was his main selling point as a rapper, you take that away and he’s just a less compelling Black Thought type rapping for the sake of rapping.”
Well, one who sounds like he’s having more fun (and by extension is a bit more fun to listen to), but I agree. And to be fair I don’t ever see you complaining that Jay Electronica should talk more about New Orleans on his shit, so this isn’t a general demand of your criticism.
And ever since Saigon had that line about the girl with the vaginal pain on, like, his one single ever, that’s all I associate him with (‘that’ being vaginal pain). Particularly after all the pussified pseudo-retirements.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I hear all this (except for the mandatory half-sentence accusations of gayness), but I still like the guy. “Crazy” and “The Kramer” from the last tape didn’t sound like anything else I’d heard in a while, and when I hear him on other people’s stuff (his song with X.O. from last year was great), I’m always glad to hear it. I’m hoping he finds a reason to make a determined 10-song, no interlude album – but I’ll still buy it if it ends up being something else. He’s earned that much from me.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Yeah I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I think Wale would be best suited as a rapper in a group. Him and Southeast Slim as a duo would be huge. Or hell even Young Chris
June 24th, 2009 at 11:00 am
I really, really think that Wale should just join State Prop already.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:48 am
U gotta have a criminal record to be in State Property..Wale needs to be in a group with Charles Hamilton,Cudi,and any other lame rapper on the cover of that XXL
June 24th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Cfro from Hiptics.com here (MOG Affiliate). Just wanted to say that I really like Back To The Feature. If you’re interested, check out my review:
http://www.hiptics.com/2009/06/19/wale-back-to-the-feature-mixtape-review-x-download/
June 25th, 2009 at 1:14 am
Hey,
I just wrote a review on this mixtape and I would really appreciate it if you guys could read and comment on it.
http://dawhat.blogspot.com/2009/06/wale-back-to-feature-mixtape-review.html
I am just trying to learn, so any types of comments or criticism would be much appreciated!
thanks in advance.
June 25th, 2009 at 3:30 am
I found it decent, but disappointing, because I know he can do better. 100 Miles was fire, yet this one doesn’t even beat the Mixtape About Nothing. I gotta give it a few more spins at least… but it IS too bad about the quality. Maybe without all the guests in the way he can focus on DC again.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Yeah, if this is what his rapping-for-rapping’s-sake tapes are gonna be like, I would much prefer he do something informed by the DC locale ’cause I bet it’ll be way more interesting. Something about the go-go sounding beats on the last tape got the best out of Wale — “Ice Cream Girl” is the niceness — but his rapping here isn’t very good in my view. He sounds too easily self-impressed now. No way in hell those verses were sufficient for him to keep pace when Bun is on his A-game like that. The sense I get is that even on a tape where he’s rapping supposedly solely for the love of rapping, Wale’s convinced he can just get by on the delivery without having to pen crazy bars. And it doesn’t work, ’cause he sounds awful for most of this tape, you can tell he’s feeling himself and it’s really irritating. Then again, his verse on the Roots record was the same way and I kinda hated it so maybe it’s just his style and I’m not feeling it.
The guests wreck shop tho, a whole bunch of these verses are sick. Kingpin Slim is far and away the best thing about the whole tape. I’m also gonna keep an eye out for this Tu Phace character. And most of the rest go off. Wale does sound pretty good rocking with State P, especially Young Chris who is dope as shit. Did anyone hear the Just Blaze-produced Young Chris / Kool G Rap collabo song from two years ago, “The Extravaganza”? They both eat it alive like no one has murked a Just Blaze beat in a long time, that shit is still bangin’.
And I’m not mad at Thought or Jean or Royce or Torae doing what they do, even over limp-dick 9th Wonder beats. Torae put out a pretty dope record with Marco Polo a few weeks ago as well, he’s one of them old school hed bussaz and he’s not a lyrical king but he’s more hit than miss.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever put my faith in a New York mixtape rapper in my life. But I think people are forgetting how legitimately big Saigon’s buzz was in New York five or six years ago…
I mean the guy was primed to be the next 50 Cent in 2005. And I think his failure has lot to do with timing and the fact that he couldn’t write a cheesy pop single in the vein of 50 Cent than the music he would’ve made otherwise…
But “Stocking Cap” and “The Letter P” were as good as any random ass random joints that get published on this blog.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
The link’s not working.
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