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The Boston Globe
His mix ‘About Nothing’ is really something

By Sarah Rodman, Globe Staff | July 25, 2008

He’s one of the lesser-known names on tomorrow’s star-studded Rock the Bells lineup, but D.C. rapper Wale is quickly building buzz. The 23-year-old has been making fans, including folks like Jay-Z and Diddy, since the May release of “The Mixtape About Nothing,” which was inspired by “Seinfeld.”

The free, 19-track download – which you can hear at elitaste.com/blog – covers a lot of ground and includes a cameo from Julia Louis-Dreyfus. There’s also a race-relations song called “The Kramer,” which samples Michael Richards’s controversial outburst at a comedy club last year.

Recently signed to friend and producer Mark Ronson’s Interscope-distributed imprint Allido Records, Wale (né Olubowale Folarin) is hard at work on his proper debut with big-name producers like Just Blaze, Pharrell, and Ronson. After a whirlwind tour of the United Kingdom, we caught up with Wale this week by phone from New York, where he was preparing for the summer’s baddest hip-hop tour.

Q: Why “Seinfeld”?

A: It was what I was feeling at the time. I was watching “Seinfeld” every night before I go to sleep or in the morning when I’m trying to get myself together, and there’s so much stuff in the show that you can take and make bigger. There are so many big ideas in the small pieces of dialogue.

Q: What led you to putting together “The Kramer”?

A: It was really just something that everybody thinks about. I don’t really push the envelope that much as far as subject matter, but that was a time I felt it was necessary because I don’t condone what he did. By having “The Mixtape About Nothing,” people probably assume that I condone it or I just turn the other cheek, and that’s not the case.

Q: “Nothing” has plenty going on. You rhyme about everything from partying to the troops in Iraq to George Costanza to poverty in America. How do you approach your writing?

A: It’s not planned out; it’s just how my mind works. I try not to strategize.

Q: What can you tell us about what your debut is going to sound like?

A: It’s going to be a complete body of work. A lot of the albums I look up to, like [Jay-Z's] “American Gangster” and [Kanye West's] “Graduation,” they sound like a complete body of work.

Q: Are you looking to perform with anybody at Rock the Bells or maybe just pick their brain about the game?

A: You don’t want anybody to say “ah, he’s thirsty.” Those people are highly respected, great, phenomenal artists who are proven, so all I want to do is maybe learn as much I can indirectly rather than asking people questions and walking around with a notebook. [laughs]

Q: Do you think it helps or hurts an artist’s future sales to put out free mixtapes?

A: Right now “Mixtape About Nothing” is probably at about 100,000 downloads total. That means at least 300,000 people are aware of its existence, so it creates awareness. I couldn’t drop an album [and sell that many copies]. I can’t come out of no daggone D.C. trying to talk about “I’m a rapper.” You have to put in work, get hot, and give away free music. If they really love me, like I’m hoping, maybe we can sell a couple.

Q: Now that you have some buzz, do you feel like Interscope will give you some creative latitude if you are also able to give them a radio hit?

A: Yeah, definitely. Just Blaze says making an album is like doing a Rubik’s Cube, and that’s the part I’m in right now. The yellows and the greens are lined up – now we just need the blues and the reds.
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company