With a spot on Entertainment Weekly’s “8 to Watch in 08″ and Ann Powers’ SXSW rave in the LA Times, the Wale hype is getting pretty loud, yet it exists for good reason. After all, how many young guns can go toe-to-toe with Bun B and Pusha-T? Not to say he’s quite there yet. From this angle, Bun-B wins the battle royal, continuing the rampage he’s been on in the aftermath of Pimp’s C’s death. Meanwhile, Pusha delivers a pretty great 16 in his own right. But Wale holds his own, sounding like Kanye if Kanye was actually a great rapper. Indeed, between Wale, Jay Electronica, The Knux, Cool Kids, Clean Guns, Blu & others, the next generation is clearly bubbling. Coupled with fact that the 90s vets finally sound interested in making music again, the hip-hop is dead arguments of ‘06 seem, well, dead.

MP3: Wale ft. Bun B & Pusha-T

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.