Wale — Attention Deficit

There have been more than a fair share of rappers who have endeared themselves to the continuously restless hip-hop blogosphere as a means of establishing their name, but Washington, D.C.'s Wale is one of the precious few who has taken their online goodwill and translated it into real-life currency.

Wale's firs long-player is far from a monolithic career-defining hit-the-ground running statement, has no pretensions of being such and is precisely what it should be: a conventional introduction designed for music listeners who learn about new acts from watching Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, not scouring message boards for rap concept albums about Seinfeld.

Wale shows he's a serviceable rapper in a rather traditionalist sense with first single "Chillin'", a song capable of play alongside a diverse set of beats, if ever so rarely pulling ahead of them. Wale doesn't exactly ooze with personality or schizophrenic rhyme schemes and cadences, but his workmanlike approach to MC-ing comes in handy when he shoots from the hip.

On 2008's Mixtape About Nothing, his shining moment was "The Kramer," a rap that took former Kramer portrayer Michael Richards' racist comedy club meltdown and used the ugly incident to reflect on rap culture's wholesale acceptance and usage of racial slurs.

When he's chronicling his exploits or talking world domination on Attention Deficit it rings hollow, yet strangely enough "90210" finds Wale surprisingly inspired by wannabe starlets.

In light of the recent controversy surrounding retired baseball slugger Sammy Sosa's paler shade of skin, the slightly hokey-yet-poignant "Shades" finds the ethnic Nigerian recalling being considered too dark-skinned even amongst his DC/Maryland high school peers: "I hate black... skin-tone/I wish I could take it back/or re-arrange my status/Maybe if I was khaki/associating light skin with classy."

Canadian rapper K'Naan makes an enthusiastic cameo on the lively, Dave Sitek (TV On The Radio)-produced "TV In The Radio." Bun B also continues his Ripken-like streak of quality guest spots by dominating the funky, Mos Def-inspired nursery rhyming of "Mirrors."

Get it from