Artists to Watch: Seven Acts Who Are Defining Rock, Soul and Hip-Hop in 2008

Click above to watch Wale perform at South by Southwest 2008 and introduce himself to Rolling Stone.

It's not exactly street to rap about Seinfeld, as D.C.-based Wale does on his Mixtape About Nothing. But the twenty-three-year-old MC doesn't care. "Everybody in hip-hop is trying to prove that they're so gangster," says Wale, who actually got Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus to cameo on the mixtape. "Let me be the guy that has something else to say."

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Wale (pronounced "wa-LAY") was born Olubowale Akintimehin, the son of Nigerian immigrants who raised him in Washington and exposed him to everything from Fela Kuti to Phil Collins. "I don't consider it black music, white music," says Wale. "I wish the world was like that."

As a teenager, Wale started writing smart, funny rhymes to go with beats built out of D.C.'s funky go-go music. His demo found its way to DJ Mark Ronson, who played it on his radio show. "It was the first thing I'd heard in ages that got me excited," says Ronson. "He's clever like Kanye, with that whole smart-guy-rapper thing like Lupe Fiasco."

Though Ronson says major-label heads have been offering "any amount of money and a Rolls-Royce" to sign Wale, the MC's Afro-beat- and soul-influenced debut album will come out this fall on Ronson's Allido Records. Given Wale's association with Ronson, it's no surprise the rapper has been embraced by indie rockers, but Wale still stews over the reception he gets from hip-hop heads back home: "D.C. is like, 'Fuck that, he's not hood enough.' But you got to be true to yourself. That's living right." EVAN SERPICK

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Photograph by Quang Le

Next: Check out the Artists to Watch from Issue 1040 — November 29, 2007