His approach to the album’s more explicitly soul-oriented tracks is to intersperse his library of 2013 rap cliches about his personal struggle to success with the occasional line about social injustice. He’s a capable, sometimes personable MC, but he’s not an especially compelling one.
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The problem is that Wale and his team made a really decent soul rap album without a rapper soulful enough to carry it. The music on The Gifted sounds fantastic, with intricately arranged keys and strings, stacks of soul and gospel-inspired backup vocals, and deep, rubbery bass lines. (Chicago rapper Tree recently used a similar approach on his mixtape, Sunday School II: When Church Lets Out, probably one of the best rap records that’ll be released this year.) It's not original, but it's a good path to follow. For all its differences from Wale's closest chart competitors, the music here (at least on the first half of the record) follows a path that was cleared as far back as the 90s: using the warm and lushly organic sound of peak-era Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder to reconnect hip-hop with a soulful revolutionary legacy that it turned away from when MCs started going in over 808 beats. In fact, it’s probably the most daring thing about The Gifted. Yada yada to the haters.That said, the fact that Wale’s decided to release such a left-field pop rap record at this point in his career is respectably daring. The dude with his heart on his sleeve is living out his dream.
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The outstanding “Black Heroes” ends with a skit featuring the real Jerry Seinfeld confirming the upcoming Album About Nothing. There ain’t no mystery on what’s next for Wale. Wale turns the attention to himself on the vital “Vanity”, flaunts his sneaker game and aspirations on the Just Blaze-produced banger “88″, and channels Marvin Gaye on the lavish “Love Hate Thing,” a tantalizing tune that radio should have championed with way more spins. From the perspective of the Jesus piece, Wale raps, “I died for you all/Now niggas die for me.” Although there have been plenty rap songs paying homage to hip-hop’s infatuation with jewels, “Golden Salvation” still stands out for its creativity. ‘Le’s uniqueness is evidenced on the self-produced “Simple Man” and his passion bleeds through the Meek Mill-included “Heaven’s Afternoon”. He commandeers the go-go fueled, captivating “Clappers” (featuring Nicki Minaj and Juicy J), smokes away the stress on the thumping “Rotation” (featuring Wiz Khalifa & 2 Chainz) and takes the media to task on the groovy “Guillibe” (Cee-Lo on the chorus).” Here he observes, “Our generation is cursed, we got too many clones.”
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The Gifted contains a gang of guests but the focus never strays off the D.C. Newfound fame hasn’t derailed him on his mission. Folarin wants to be recognized one day with the great ones. You see satisfaction is for suckers and Mr. Ha! Armed with a gold second album, Wale shoots for the top on his third LP. If you don’t like Wale for his ambition, then maybe this album isn’t for you.