Wale: 21st Century Go-Go

Wale: Breakdown and Uptown Roamers

As displayed in J.'s post below, it's not all pre 1994 on this site. I never have, and never will, buy the notion that modern music is shite. While I love my old soul, jazz, funk and rap there's always an innovative, original, sound round the corner to reawaken the excitement of even the most jaded listener.

With this in mind it's time to shine a light on an up and coming talent from Washington DC - Wale (Wha-lay). Currently setting the world of MySpace alight this rapper actually has the music and talent to back up the hype as he and his crew go about reinventing Go-Go for the new millennium.

On the blistering Breakdown Wale lets fly over a combination of various drum breaks and synths that could have come straight from a classic Junkyard Band recording but here sound totally fresh and new. Seriously intense when played at high volumes, I want to be in a club when this drops.

Uptown Roamers flips it on a more Chopped & Screwed vibe as Wale delivers a fluent introduction to his city, it's inhabitants, and the culture over a heavy synth production, proving himself to be much more than just a party mc.

You can find a couple of other decent tracks from Wale at his MySpace page and download his mixtapes for free at his label's site Studio 43. With various deals in the pipeworks there looks like deservedly big things on the horizon for this particular MC.

(Thanks to honorary EarFuzz member Chuck for hooking me up to Wale's sound.)