Wale's new album The Gifted is doing very well, debuting at number one last week. While the album is chock full of singles, the DC rapper has explained that their is a dense thematic arc to the project. He broke down some of the tracks with Billboard, including the remix to his single "Bad" with Rihanna.
The "Gifted rapper explained that he paid more attention to sonics than lyrics this time around. "I spent more time tweaking the sound of it than I did writing my raps 'cause I wanted to go all the way in on some sound," he said.
Wale then spoke of the track "Gullible," which he explained was to break the illusion that the most important thing in life is "feeling good," which could be read as a possible critique of the YOLO mindset.
"The society we live in right now is so horrible that if it sounds good, it's the truth," he said. "If it feels good, it's the truth."
The MMG emcee then weighed in on the "Bad (Remix)," revealing that he didn't think RiRi would go through with it.
"Me and Rihanna, we talked about it for a while and she was like, 'I wanna do it' and I was like, 'You're just giving me the artist talk, come on shorty you don't wanna do it,' and you know she did it and she boddied it," he said. "I got Rihanna to rap a little bit so I'm happy about that."
Watch the full interview below.
