Wale is about to drop his new album Everything Is A Lot soon, which means he's connecting with fans on social media and is feeling a lot of love right now. However, a recent post on Twitter has many fans raising their eyebrows, as some Internet sleuths think this message is a diss towards Tyler, The Creator.
First, some context. The former Odd Future frontman has a few old tweets dissing the DMV MC back in the day, when they were first coming up in the early 2010s. The latter dismissed this, as well as criticism from other rappers at the time. Since then, though, they haven't really been connected beyond shoutouts from a 2017 Apple event. So why is this coming back up now?
Well, that would be because there's a huge debate around Tyler, The Creator's fanbase right now which the MMG affiliate seems to have responded to. The basic gist of it is that, after Tyler's D'Angelo tribute, a fan tweeted about his white fans not appreciating Black art in the same way he would like them to. The Hawthorne native liked this tweet, and this led to many online users bringing up various anti-Black, controversial, or edgy statements in the past. Some of this discussion also included debates around pretentiousness and reaping what you sow.
With all that context in mind, Wale's tweet certainly caused commotion, even if these reactions by no means confirm that he intended this for the CHROMAKOPIA artist at all. "Shoutout to black people who love black people," he wrote amid this firestorm. Take this interpretation with a massive grain of salt, as these are just fan theories.
Tyler The Creator Tweets
We will see if either Tyler or Wale end up addressing this at some point in the future. It seems very unlikely given the history we have, but far more shocking things have emerged in hip-hop these days.
Fan Reactions
In any case, this controversy goes far beyond any one artist, and does not make excuses for anyone. Hopefully fans understand the nuances and complex debates of it rather than falling for rage bait in either direction.
