Wale ft. Rick Ross & Jadakiss - 600 Benz (Self Made Vol. 1, 2011)

I’m not going to dispute that Wale could use some instruction — as much as I liked his early mixtapes, and jammed “Nike Boots” near every single day I rode the Metro when I lived in D.C. last year — Attention Deficit was a decidedly middling album. I’d love to tell rappers that these kind of cynical pop crossover records don’t even move the units to justify abandoning their established strengths, but then B.o.B. had to go and prove that you can actually make bank off that sort of idiocy. It didn’t work for Wale, however, which means he has to try something new. Luckily, he’s got talent, even if he hasn’t shown he really knows how to turn it into a career. He could do with being taken under somebody’s wing.

But, god, why does it have to be Rick Ross? C.O. Rozay has improved immeasurably as a rapper in recent years, even though I stick to my minority opinion that, whatever he does, he’ll never top the first half dozen tracks on Port of Miami. Regardless, I really don’t like the idea of a rap world in which this fat motherfucker is some kind of role model, someone who should be having young up-and-comers studying his moves and benefiting from his tutelage. See, no matter how much Rawse peddles his Jeezy-but-dumber/Fat-Joe-but-fatter flow, he’s still unable to create fully realized worlds like those rappers do — and those rappers are basically creating fantasy worlds anyway. Jim Jones did an improved Rick Ross on any random line you might choose from “Reppin’ Time”; we don’t need dudes acting like this Floridian is a model for anything other than how not to manage your calorie intake.

Despite these handicaps, “600 Benz” ends up a pretty good tune. Wale is smart enough to benefit from being boxed into doing ignant raps, and even though I swear he had to pick Ross’s ass hairs from his lips once he’d done spitting (“Pass me the lighter, Rozay” — barf) he squeezes some good punchlines from his fallback sneakers-and-football based wordplay. Jada does one of them Jada verses that shows why he’s always welcome on a hard nosed street track, and overall the thing ends up as a superior version of Weezy’s “John,” which has to be kind of embarrassing for Wayne, as well as a poor portent for Tha Carter IV.