A few songs, including a collaboration with Freddie Gibbs, missed the final cut due to sample-clearance issues this summer, during the months leading up to the album’s release, Wale took some time off that he recently attributed to recovering from COVID-19.

He’s now onto his seventh album, Folarin II, a sequel to his 2012 mixtape Folarin. rapper settled into a string of solid, successful releases like 2011’s Ambition, whose Miguel collab “Lotus Flower Bomb” was nominated for Best Rap Song at the 2013 Grammys, and 2015’s The Album About Nothing, a sequel to the 2010 mixtape with narration from Jerry Seinfeld himself. Later, joining Rick Ross’s Maybach Music Group in 2011, the D.C. His 2009 Interscope Records debut, Attention Deficit, took intriguing chances - Gucci Mane on a go-go track Lady Gaga on a song sampling the sports-arena jam “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” - but didn’t catch fire on the charts as expected.

Wale is a fascinating character, a 2000s mixtape legend - thanks to the strengths of releases like 2007’s Seinfeld-sampling The Mixtape About Nothing. “I’ve been loyal to the game sometimes when the game didn’t have love for me.”

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