Wale knows how he can be. Over the year’s the DMV area pioneer has earned himself a reputation for being short-tempered (to put it nicely) and sensitive about his status in hip-hop. After all, very few other artists with his resume get talked about the way he does, and almost no one is meaner to him than he is to himself.
He aims to change that with “Mirroronnabenz,” the latest single from his upcoming eighth studio album and Def Jam debut, Everything Is A Lot. Over a BNYX-produced Afro-swing beat, Wale gets real with the man in the mirror, shifting his self-talk with more encouraging affirmations. “Mirror, mirror, mirror, look at all your transgressions / N****s think you crazy, crackers think you too aggressive,” he muses. “The people think you mad, I ain’t mad, just reflecting.” At the end of the song, he tells himself, “Say I’m good enough / Say I’m Black enough / Say I’m rich enough.”
It’s an intriguing idea for an artist with a complicated legacy, and it’s fascinating to hear after “Blanco,” another self-reflective single in which Wale appears to hold himself accountable. His next album will be his first since 2021’s Folarin II, and it looks like he’s used the intervening four years to work on some things.
You can listen to Wale’s “Mirroronnabenz” above.
Everything Is A Lot. is due on 11/14 via Def Jam.