Usually, we get an album full of songs that seem to be just thrown together but this time - even though this was named “The Album About Nothing” - Wale definitely had a lot to talk about. To me, this album was something totally different from what Wale usually does, and I mean different in s good way. The 15-song album has features from singer and songwriter SZA, Grammy-award winner Kanye West and J. Some are clips from the eponymous well-known 90s TV show (also called “The Show About Nothing”), and others are from the Seinfeld himself today. Still, it's a minor complaint as The Album About Nothing is bigger, bolder, and better than expected.The DC-based artist Wale released his second studio titled “The Album About Nothing” which was influenced by his self-proclaimed good friend Jerry Seinfeld, who gives every song on the album an intro. Package all this weighty material with Jerry, George, and Elaine in the mix and the album is a creative triumph, but although Wale's got so much to say, he often says it over the same tempo, and if it weren't for 'The Girls on Drugs' (rescued from another Seinfeld-themed mixtape, Festivus) and a couple other kicking moments, the musical spectrum here would be narrow. Cole tackles race relations and suggests that feeling flossy and/or stoned is just a temporary distraction from the bad news across society, then 'The Middle Finger' gets at the helplessness of depression as it rattles off all of the rapper's problems and then drops F-bombs and 'Leave me alone' as its chorus.

A routine about relationships ('When you get engaged it's like starting on the roller coaster.') inspires 'The Matrimony' with special guest Usher, but the Jerry device is used as needed, and this ironically titled effort is heavy with Wale's own hopes, dreams, and disappointments, including dealing with a recent pregnancy, then miscarriage. Seinfeld guides listeners through the story and sometimes his routines or thoughts inspire the songs, including the key poetic track 'The Helium Balloon,' where flying free and high becomes a metaphor for talent. It's a fame so huge that Jerry Seinfeld is actually Wale's friend now, and while the sitcom star was sampled for the 2008 mixtape, he narrates this album. It worked better the first time, but much has changed for Wale in the seven years leading up to The Album About Nothing, meaning a rekindled, quirky idea like this could put his fame at risk. Playing off the ideas and structure of his 2008 mixtape The Mixtape About Nothing, rapper Wale's fourth studio album uses the television sitcom Seinfeld as the framework for an introspective and autobiographical effort, and as odd as that sounds, this is the second time it has worked.

Wale the album about nothing tpb