Attention Deficit (2009)
Album Scan
By Arik Cohen
The album opens with short, quarter-measure horns announcing his arrival. He comes on the mic, "Ladies and gentlemen" is all he gets out before going straight into a verse. Gentlemen, ladies, welcome to the best rap album of the year.
I'm really trying not to be biased. I'm from the DC Metro area, and I always liked Wale. His mixtapes have always been solid. His rhymes dense with content and loose with flow. I know it's very easy to define him as a mathemtaical equation of other MCs, but the equations are so long that if he started as a Kanye + Lil Wayne + Lupe he has since morphed into his own beast.
I assumed the title, Attention Deficit, was a standard back-packer shot at America's lack of focus, but it seems to be more of a description of the album's style. Every song is about something different, and the distinctiveness of each track is thrilling. This isn't one of those standardized albums where each song is interchangable, where each song has the same Scott Storch synths and the same Kanye-imitating drums. This album went out of its way to make sure each track had a personality. But Wale doesn't fix what's not broken, he doesn't stretch too far in the subject matter. There's the anti-haters track, "Mirrors," the c'mon-brothers-lets-not-fight-amongst-ourselves track, "Shades" and even the self-inflectious, what-am-I-doing track, "Prescription." But it seems like he approached each track individually, and perfected them individually. They really feel like they're from different eras of the same career. In a genre that loves the single-thesis album, it's refreshing to have an LP of 14 fantastic individual ideas compiled together. It's like he decided to do it backwards and release his greatest hits record first.
And I'm not saying that since it's the sum of its parts that there's no cohesion. These songs work well together. I'm just saying they weren't planned together. It's one of those albums you can put on shuffle and you won't add any new wear and tear to the skip button nor will you miss a meaning created from any specific track order.
But because of this style, it's difficult to review the album as a whole. Very few words really describe more than one or two tracks. So I'll have to discuss by producer.
Mark Ronson's "Mirrors" might be the first absolutely excellent track on the album. Sure, at its heart it is simply a pretty standard anti-haters track, but Wale has a way with flow and knows not just what to say but how to say it. Even the hook is able to break out of the gimmicky box Wale seemed to write it in. (Mirror Mirror on the wall / who's the realest of them all...) as text it almost seems cringe-worthy, but Wale and the underrated Bun B (1/2 of UGK) are able to hit the right words on the right jazzy element of the excellent Mark Ronson beat to make it feel natural.
Speaking of which, who knew Mark Ronson would jump into this guns blazing with two of the best productions on the album? What has he done since Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" that really set the toes a-tappin'? Well, now we can say Wale's "Mirrors" and "90210", the latter of which might be the album's MVP. "90210" has a Mark-Oliver-Everett-meets-Justice sound with Wale letting the beat lead his essay on celebrities, Bevery Hills women, and more importantly the impact this has on the next generation (She live her whole life like TV / She would do anything for everything / Regular girl, celebrity dreams / She is 90210). His use of terms like "Beverly Hills victims" really drill this home, especcially with his innocent outsider perspective. It would be different if The Game, Dre, or any West Coast MC wrote the song. Wale is an outsider to everything 90210, and is speaking as an outside voice of reason.
Frequent Wale producer Best Kept Secret contributes four tracks, most complete with the go-go sound originated in DC, and which Wale has embraced. Best Kept Secret produced the entirety of Wale's Mixtape About Nothing, which was his best work before this one. (Well, it may still be. It's tough to differentiate between different levels of great.) The beats Best Kept Secret provides to Attention Defcicit are admittidly a little more commercial than on Mixtape About Nothing, but all do great at what they try. "Prescription" seems like it fuses go-go with the theme from "Taxi", which works more than you'd think. Wale's lyrics over it are perfect: A medical-themed rant on himself and the state of hip hop. I'd quote it, but it would loose all its power without Wale's incredible flow.
Hopefully the go-go element will bring those style drums to the forefront. Perhaps we'll hear them on more than just an Amerie single and that Roots song Wale was on.
The Neptunes provide a single track, with Pharrell making what must be his contractually obligated appearance. The beat is still not Neptunes in their prime, but it is one of their stronger (and stranger) productions of the past few years, with constant beeps, synths, and reverse drums. It strange enough to give to Clipse to work on. The upcoming Clipse album is their first without 100% Neptunes involvement, and I can't help but think maybe The Neptunes had a few Clipse-style productions ready, which Clipse didn't ask for. If so, then Wale lucked out getting top-shelf Neptunes at a time when only Clipse were getting it. It's like a police auction.
This leaves Cool & Dre. Cool & Dre produced one of my favorite beats of the decade in 2006 with Rick Ross's "Blow" and produce two tracks here: The "hey! Look at me!" single, "Chillin'" and the epic "World Tour." Jazmine Sullivan joins Wale on "World Tour" and with Cool & Dre we have one of the best groupings of the next greats. I've always said Cool & Dre are a year or two off being the next powerhouse, and this beat just brings them another step closer. It's an overproduced, multi-layered, shiny and crisp work that feels rich and expensive in every second. Like 2012 it's a blockbuster where you can hear the money. Wale channels his Q-Tip, Jazmine channels her Blidge-in-her-prime, and the whole thing really does feel like an all-expenses-paid trip around the world on a billionaires-only cruise. Too abstract of a description? Too bad. This is going to be a surprise club favorite, I can feel it. It also should be noted that Wale can work with these complex, over-produced beats, something very few MCs can do. (Even Jay-Z had trouble with the over-produced "Show Me What You Got")
I haven't hit every track, nor will I. Props should be thrown at K'naan's verse on "TV in the Radio" and Marsh Abriousius on "Diary". Wale's Attention Deficit is a fantastic album in an otherwise weak year for the genre, and might be 2009's only ambassador to the list of the decade's greats. In other, shorter words: Buy it now.
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