Wale - "Attention Deficit"; Best Out of DC so Far, 3.2/5, More Diverse Than Other East Coast Records. Your Typical DC/MD/VA Party

Another DC/Maryland/Virginia Party, so Go Figure

Okay I must admit I wasn't feeling Wale at first. I thought, from "Chillin", that the rhetoric of Lady Gaga and his putting DC on the map was the reason most people were listening to him. Then I heard some of his other records, like "Shades", where he honestly talks about being dark-skinned and not allowing a light-skinned girl into his heart that I took notice. Expect for "Shades" to be a huge radio single, particularly given all of the attention to the subject on Tyra. "Attention Deficit", is a great album, and not just for beats, but is a pretty decent freshman release for a new mainstream artist. Sure the record is tinged with Go-Go but it really deserves a listen.

Some of his songs tend to delve into post-depression territory, and are a bit weird like Kid Cudi, but Wale never really takes you there like the Kid does. Wale tip-toes between grossly commercial hip-hop, and true bangers, such as 90210, which seems loosely built off of Kanye West's Paranoid. The album can be too commercially ambitious at times though, and feels more like rap than hip-hop in places, like with Mama Told Me.

Basically this album is more about whether or not Washington DC can compete with the rest of the East Coast and deliver something other than Go-Go. Wale has crushed the mixtape circuit, and has a lot of good songs floating around, but songs like Pretty Girls can loose their novelty really quick once you get past the Go-Go rhetoric. Nike Boots, from his mixtape days, is still better than most of the songs on his mainstream release, which makes you wonder if he isn't another 50 Cent who will fade into irrelevance once he blows up and is no longer hungry. Too many artists have fell into this trap.