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Wale has revisited last year’s The Gifted with his new release, the long-awaited remix to “Sunshine.” For the reworking, the D.C. rapper grabbed Rick
Ross and Common to bless Tone P and Stokley Williams’ percussion-heavy production with uplifting words. Gruff voice and all, Rick Ross eschews his persona to drop honest bars about his unlikely rise: “I struggled at math, therefore perfected my craft/In the back of my mind I said establish a staff.” Common offers similar wisdom, characterizing adversity as a maze: “In this maze they call us the black rats/’Cause we trapped from the projects we stacked at.”
Though Wale recycles a verse from the original, his assertion that music is therapeutic (“Fuck a therapist, I put everything in this cone”) is relatable to anyone who uses their passion as a distraction from their frustrations. Ironically, Wale got into a confrontation at a WWE event with a fan who called him out on Twitter. Video of the incident shows pushing between him and the heckler, but in the wake of last year’s confrontation with Raptors analyst Matt Devlin and the now-infamous Complex magazine (disclosure: I write for them) phone call, people are eager to blow anything the rapper does out of proportion.
Now that his inner wrestler is out of his system, Wale can get back to working on what people really want to hear: The Album About Nothing.