Rdot Reviews Wale's "Back to the Feature"

Album/Mixtape – Back To the Feature
Artist – Wale
Rating - $$$$$

I’m hella biased. Why? Cause this is good hiphop, dammit, that’s why. This mixtape is better than most of the latest hiphop albums that have come out recently, but that’s life. The majority of the mixtape is produced by 9th Wonder, a former member of Lil Brother. That’s a great thing! Also, the concept of the mixtape is…the feature. One of the most overused strategies in hiphop involves an artist getting some big name other artist to join him/her on a track and hope that magic happens. Well, in this case magic typically happens with such guests as Curren$y, Beanie Sigel, Skyzoo, BunB, K’naan, J. Cole, Lady Gaga, Black Thought, Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, Jean Grae, etc. I respect Wale for getting the features out of his system so that he doesn’t cloud his debut LP with them, which would take away from his content and him finding his sound. If you’re not familiar with Wale, he’s from the DMV area (shout out to Big Sis Najeema) and has a pretty distinct, laid back DC-bama type of flow. Haha.

Top 4 songs to check for:
***Sweating Out Weaves ft UCB (go-go music is in the house!)
Um Ricka ft. K’naan (a song sampling Fela Kuti FTW!)
Goodbye ft. Jean Grae (a relationship gone wrong makes for good music)
Talking Shyt ft. Bun B (wale holds his own next to an underground kang!)

Seriously, by my count, this is Wale’s 4th major mixtape, so dude has been putting out some dope music for a minute and he’s no rookie. I promise that you definitely won’t be disappointed by this opus if this is your first time getting introduced to him. If you are disappointed, then I rebuketh thou and not even I can saveth thou music tastes!


(OG concurs)