Wale Ambition Review

The first thing to understand about how Ambition works is that the production is the main event. The credits are wide: DJ Toomp on "Legendary" and "No Days Off", T-Minus on the title track, Lex Luger on "That Way", Diplo on "Slight Work", Tha Bizness on "Illest Bitch", Tone P. on several others. Yet the finished record sounds like one room. That is a real achievement and the album's clearest strength. Horns, live-sounding drums and soul samples are mixed so that every song feels padded and expensive, and Wale's voice sits on top of it without strain. "Legendary" leans on a Barbara Blake & The Uniques sample, and "That Way" builds from Curtis Mayfield and a Mary J. Blige interpolation, which is why the sound has the weight of older records even when the writing does not.

The weakness is that the sound is designed to flatter, and it flatters everyone equally. Almost every beat arrives at the same medium pace, with a hook that asks for a singer, and Wale adapts to it rather than pushing against it. Compare that with the hungrier, wordier Wale who rapped over harder drums on earlier projects, and the loss is obvious: where he once jumped between ideas, here he settles into a groove and stays there. The Slant review in the fact sheet complained that his legacy talk stops being fun, and the complaint is fair. Too many verses restate the album's premise (I work harder than you, I will be remembered, the women love it) without adding a new image or an actual scene.

Where the writing works, it works because of detail. Wale's best lines are conversational, observational and slightly bruised, and when he lets that voice speak, as he does when the album slows down for its title song or sits with Miguel's hook, the album gets human. The same writer is responsible for the dated, defensive handling of women on songs like "Illest Bitch", where a gesture meant as praise is built from clumsy phrasing and borrowed bravado. The record wants to court female listeners and to flex like Maybach at once, and the two goals pull at each other.

Delivery is the quiet reason the album stays listenable. Wale has a pleasantly gravelly tone, a flexible pocket, and a habit of landing a punchline late that keeps even the weaker verses moving. The guests are used sensibly: Rick Ross as a presence in the background and on two songs, Meek Mill as the shot of adrenaline on the title track, Miguel and Ne-Yo and Jeremih as melodic cover. None of them outshines the host, which is a flattering sign for Wale and a mild one for the ensemble. The album is cohesive in sound and a little too even in effect, and that evenness, more than any single bad song, is what holds it back from the greatness it keeps asking for.

As a sequence, the album is built like a night at a nice restaurant: a loud, confident arrival, a long comfortable middle, and an emotional finish. The opening run does the most work. Wale announces the project with brass-heavy statements and a pair of tightly written verses, and the first quarter moves quickly because the songs are short and the beats keep changing texture. By the time the record reaches "Legendary", the album has built enough momentum that a five-minute song feels earned rather than indulgent.

The sag comes in the middle, and it is a sag of sameness, not of quality. Several songs sit at nearly the same tempo, with a similar mixture of piano, drums and melodic hook, and a listener can drift through them without registering a change. The record is only thirteen songs long, so this is not a case of obvious bloat, yet it plays longer than it is. Sequencing might have helped, since the strongest hooks are spread out rather than grouped, but the real issue is that the album has only one emotional setting. It is confident, mildly romantic and mildly anxious, and the sequence rarely lets any of those moods break through into something sharper or messier.

The back third recovers some energy. The title song brings in guests, the push of a larger production and the album's sharpest argument about what his career means, and the closing songs return to the warmer, more intimate register that suits Wale best. The finish is respectable rather than climactic. What the sequence never does is take a risk: no skit that surprises, no abrupt change of pace, no moment where the producers are allowed to break the template. That is why the album feels more like a very good playlist than a story, with a clear start and a gracefully fading end, and why its length, though modest on paper, still outstays the amount of ideas it has to share.

Ambition is a good album that stops short of a great one, and it deserves a place near the middle of the Maybach era rather than at the top. Because no other Wale album is rated on the site yet, the honest comparison is against what he was before and what he could have been. Measured against the sharper, stranger rapper of his earlier work, this is a step toward safety. Measured against the rest of the genre in 2011, it is an above-average major-label rap record with a handful of songs that earn their place. The mixed critical reception, a Metacritic average of 69, is about right: some reviewers found a polished sophomore album, others found a dull one, and both were describing the same record.

Who is it for? Anyone who likes a warm, soul-leaning Southern sound, and anyone curious about how Maybach Music Group packaged a lyricist who did not naturally belong to its world. Fans of Rick Ross's lush production will be comfortable here; so will listeners who want rap with R&B hooks and without much confrontation. Who should skip it? Anyone coming for the rawest, funniest and most idiosyncratic Wale, and anyone who wants a record that surprises. There is very little here that a listener could not guess after two songs.

Start with "Legendary" for the best argument the album makes, then "Lotus Flower Bomb" for the clearest example of how well the pop-minded formula can work, and "Ambition" for the sound of the whole project in one song. If you like what you hear, explore the wider catalog on Wale's artist page, and then try Rick Ross to hear the label sound at its source, or Meek Mill for the hungrier energy this album only briefly borrows.

Over time the record has aged as a snapshot of a particular moment, when major labels believed a lyrical rapper could be turned into a crossover act by surrounding him with soft hooks and brass. The best songs still work. The rest sound like a very good sketch for a better album.