It’s the sign of an MC who has trouble getting out of salesman mode. On the latter track, he yaps a lot about “new black soul” during stretches that probably should’ve been pure music. Songs such as the electro-pop cautionary tale “Vanity” (whose hook borrows the “worn-out places, worn-out faces” lines from Gary Jules’ “Mad World”) and the celebration of success “Sunshine” (which glows when it gets to ear-grabbing vocals by Stokley and Dew) are somehow not completely satisfying, as if Wale’s raps are accessories instead of counterpoints.
The first third of The Gifted amounts to a cycle of self-reflection, and it’s a bit of a chore to get through, even though producers No Credit, Tone P, Stokley, and Sam Dew provide some memorable sounds. To be fair, he sounds like he’s enjoying the job. His third major-label album, The Gifted, feels fussed-over even when it’s supposed to be breezy, as if the pop-rap successes of 2011’s Ambition-“Lotus Flower Bomb,” “That Way”-earned him only pressure, not wiggle room.
In a professional arc in which art and careerism often seemed indivisible, the DMV rapper had at last completed a project that felt totally in the moment. With last year’s Folarin mixtape, it seemed like Wale had finally relaxed.
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