Wall-E

This post is about Wall-E, the movie and Wale the rapper. First off, Wall-E got snubbed for a best picture nomination. It was without a doubt the most touching and well thought out movie of the year. Did you even realize that for the majority of the movie there were no voices? Nope, you probably did not, but it it felt like there were voices. Never has a robot shown so much empathy or emotion with saying so little. While also being tremendously cute, Wall-E was also a scathing critique of where our society is going and a distopian view of the future that made the movie appeal to a number of very diverse audiences. No matter what you walked away with, Wall-E was a stunning film.

Wale, The Beast of the Beltway, came out with a second ballin mixtape in 2008 entitled The Mixtape About Nothing. Despite it being on Pitchfork's top 50 albums of the year and the great Seinfeld reference both in its title and cover art, I somehow overlooked this piece of work for the entire year. Only last night, after finally acquiring The Mixtape About Nothing, did I fully begin to appreciate what an intelligent and refreshing mixtape it is. It is truly a fun listen with fun lyrics, sick beats and Seinfeld clips. While staying hard (such as by getting Pusha T from Clipse to rap on The Future Heavy Song and rep Playcloths), Wale references Priest Holmes, Alex Ovechkin and a host of other awesome sports personages like Oxana Baiul! Wale is certainly humorous and catchy, but he also talks about Gitmo and stays topical while still managing to throw in audio clips from old Seinfeld episodes. From the bangers where he raps over the beat from Roc Boys or uses parts of the Seinfeld theme, Wale is always having fun. To top it all off, he's teaming up with David Sitek from TV on the Radio and Lairs to produce his 2009 debut album, which will feature guest appearances from Tunde and others. Wale's tribute to Seinfeld is impressive in that he has crafted a superb, funny and intelligent album without resorting to cheap tricks, or cut and dry rap lyrics, but by simply using a critical eye in observing the world around him.

Wale - The Future Heavy Song (YSI) (filesavr)
Wale -The Freestyle (Roc Boys) (YSI) (filesavr)
Wale - The Kramer (YSI) (filesavr)
Wale - The Manipulation (YSI) (filesavr)