Credit: Spotify

Wale is one of the rappers at the forefront of the blog era. The DMV native helped form a new generation of hip-hop stars in the late 2000s alongside Drake, J Cole, Kid Cudi, and Wiz Khalifa, going on to become some of the biggest artists in the genre.

While many people have credited Kanye West as the influence for a lot of artists who launched their careers around that time, Wale believes Lupe Fiasco played a bigger role in his generation getting recognition from notable websites.

Speaking to Complex in 2011, Wale touched on Fiasco’s skateboarding persona and the respect he has for his 2006 mixtape Fahrenheit 1/15 Part II: Revenge of the Nerds. He also compared himself to Cudi due to being less “street-based” than others that blew up at the same time.

“I can’t tell you how big of a Lupe fan I was when he first came out,” he said. “I didn’t know a damn thing about skateboarding, but I was like, ‘This fly Chicago n-gga man, he’s spitting. For real.’ That Revenge of the Nerds mixtape? Fucking crazy. And it was the start man.”

He continued, “People think Kanye started these new n-ggas. But Lupe Fiasco started all of this shit for us to get a chance and for Complex to really fuck with n-ggas like us. I can’t even really compare it to B.o.B and Meek, because they’re more street-based. But for someone like myself, Cudi, or even my artist Black Cobain, that kind of gave us that other look.”

Wale credits the Internet for gaining attention from the likes of JAY-Z and West, claiming his growing popularity online led to buzz within the industry: “It’s probably a mixture of both the Internet and industry buzz,” he told WIRED in 2008. “I mean the industry is a little bit slower than the Internet. But Internet buzz definitely leads to industry buzz.”

Despite stating West didn’t start everything for him, he didn’t mean any shade towards the G.O.O.D. Music boss. During the same WIRED interview, he listed Ye among some of his superstar friends in the music world at the time.

“I have a pretty long list of artists that I consider friends now. You know what I’m saying?” he said. “Like JAY-Z, Pharrell, Kanye, Black Thought, Questlove, Bun B, Pusha T, Rhymefest. Those are people that I consider my friends.”

Wale’s early Seinfeld-inspired mixtapes The Mixtape About Nothing and More About Nothing, along with his debut album Attention Deficit, turned out to be staples for that era. That early success was the blueprint to later securing two number one albums on the Billboard 200 chart with 2013’s The Gifted and 2015’s The Album About Nothing, which included original dialogue from Jerry Seinfeld himself.

Wale ended up collaborating with Lupe Fiasco in 2013 on the song ‘Poor Decisions’ alongside Rick Ross, which appeared on Maybach Music Group’s Self Made Vol. 3 compilation. Produced by Jake One and Sam Wish, the track served as one of the singles from the album with back-to-back verses.