It’s the sign of an MC who has trouble getting out of salesman mode. On the latter track, he yaps a lot about “new black soul” during stretches that probably should’ve been pure music. Songs such as the electro-pop cautionary tale “Vanity” (whose hook borrows the “worn-out places, worn-out faces” lines from Gary Jules’ “Mad World”) and the celebration of success “Sunshine” (which glows when it gets to ear-grabbing vocals by Stokley and Dew) are somehow not completely satisfying, as if Wale’s raps are accessories instead of counterpoints. The first third of The Gifted amounts to a cycle of self-reflection, and it’s a bit of a chore to get through, even though producers No Credit, Tone P, Stokley, and Sam Dew provide some memorable sounds. To be fair, he sounds like he’s enjoying the job. ![]() His third major-label album, The Gifted, feels fussed-over even when it’s supposed to be breezy, as if the pop-rap successes of 2011’s Ambition-“Lotus Flower Bomb,” “That Way”-earned him only pressure, not wiggle room. In a professional arc in which art and careerism often seemed indivisible, the DMV rapper had at last completed a project that felt totally in the moment. With last year’s Folarin mixtape, it seemed like Wale had finally relaxed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |