MMG star Wale recently spoke to Hot 97’s Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg about his feud with Complex magazine, his distrust of media and, of course, the impact of Beyoncé‘s new self-titled album.
“One thing I’m gonna change now is I’m not gonna do media for everybody now. I don’t think it’s worth it,” said Wale. “You got treat this s–t like an expensive pair of sneakers dog or a good jacket or some s–t … I think the labels gotta wake up. Beyonce did—she saved a lot of people’s careers, man, with that move, dog. She saved a lot of people’s sanity I’ll say because no rollout. Just—it’s about the art. Like obviously, n—as gon’ still have they rollout, but she made it so it’s like less focused on the rollout and more about the music.”
“The one thing I wish I could change about [his 2013 album] The Gifted rollout…I wasn’t doing the things that I wanted to do with my time,” Wale said. “I was doing like a little in-store [in] a little, small city for like five people. With bad promotion nobody came. And it was just like ‘Yo, why am I here? When I could be—or doing a radio interview.’ Which is odd. Radio is super important. I super have respect for it, but it’s like I could have been shooting two or three videos in that time. Before my album came out. And let them videos fall when they may. Now I didn’t have no time. I went right on tour. I didn’t have no time to shoot no videos. So it’s like hindsight, 20/20, and all that, but I wanna take more control over what I do and what I don’t do.”
Wale told Hot 97 that he believes Complex has had bias against him ever since he feuded with fellow hip-hop star Kid Cudi in 2011. “I’m a bit of conspiracy theorist a little bit,” said Wale. “So, I believe that me and [Kid Cudi’s] fallout had something to do with a lack of support [from Complex].”
