Wale Gives the Street a Festivus Treat With Seinfeld-Inspired Mixtape

Emerging rapper Wale is mining some unconventional material for his upcoming mixtape. Rather than rapping about dealing cocaine (like the Re-Up Gang's We Got It For Cheap, Volume 3) or aping Jay-Z (Jim Jones' Harlem's American Gangster), Wale is gonna be spitting rhymes about Kramer, Newman, the Soup Nazi and the rest of the Seinfeld crew on his street-bound The Mixtape About Nothing. The Washington, D.C. rapper boasts, "I think I've seen every episode, like, thirty times," a feat he shares with the entire population of Long Island. On one cut, dubbed "Hype," the rapper utilizes a long sample from one of Jerry's opening-credit comedy routines. But the biggest revelation is that Wale somehow successfully corralled Elaine Benes herself, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, to lend a brief skit to the mixtape. No street date has been set yet, but that hasn't prevented us from already dreaming up possible song titles. "Mr. Bookman?" "The Master of My Domain?" "The Bro vs. the Mansiere?" This mixtape might be the best, Jerry. The best.

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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