Wale Quotes

Jay-Z's my favorite rapper, but why can't I aspire to be better than him?

I speak my mind. That's what we loved Tupac for.

I wanna meet the person who wrote the Burlington Coat Factory thing, but that's cool. I would love to understand it more, but everything is good.

Basically, the Internet is just the way now. It's the end-all, be-all of self-promotion. It's not like you got to burn CDs and pass them out or sell them. The Internet is a tool that reaches billions and billions of people. It's like a no-brainer to tie it in with self-promotion, or even label promotion.

I'm very proud of my Nigerian heritage. I wasn't fortunate enough to be raised in a heavy Nigerian environment, because my parents were always working. My father was with D.C. Cabs and my mother worked in fast food and was a nurse.

However, people need to understand that it ain't that deep to try and convince people of what your persona is. You are who you are, and what you are will show in time. What you aren't can be hidden, but eventually it will come to light. Long story short: rappers should never take themselves too seriously.

I like David Beckham just because of his lifestyle. He don't ever need to score another goal again. How many times has he been on the cover of GQ?

The ability to make somebody feel something: that's art. However you look at it, whether you're an author, a painter, a singer, a rapper, a spoken-word artist - art.

Most artists should be able to make the album that they want. You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process.

I just wanna affect the culture and wanna be able to support young people with goals that aren't just limited to rapping and producing.

I put my foot in my mouth sometimes. I'll be the first to admit it.

The Web is the new way to figure out who's hot and what's not. You can't let TV dictate because it's so polished, so political. It is what they want you to know. The Internet is the raw.

Failure is not an option. Success is just a process.

D.C.'s a tough place to get love unless you're from D.C. It's like everybody hates you here. The only black person that everyone can agree on is Obama.

I never understood the idea that I was a 'backpack rapper.' I think that's a lazy way that people started thinking. They like saying that because I got dreads. I look like I belong a certain place, so it's easy to put everything in a box.

There's no way you can win when you're the president; you've got to be the scapegoat for America's issues.

I come from a place, with all due respect, who's never had a music star in hip-hop. So the odds is already against me.

Maybe they just like me because they like me, and they don't like me because they feel like they have to like me because they like this person or that person.

A lot of my female fans discovered me through the passion I have for bettering myself. Not to say the dudes don't, but my female fan-base is based off women who want to do better.

It's a trend to insult Wale, like that makes you cool on the Internet, and a part of it is because I respond.

Not to sound corny, but intelligence is big. Everything fades, and everything can be modified. But intelligence is something you can't fake. I'm not even talking about whether you can read a thesaurus backwards. But there is a beauty in common sense.

Ruzzle's my therapy. When I get off the stage from a packed show and I'm exhausted, I'll just go Ruzzle for like a good 30 minutes.

You can be a rapper born and raised in go-go music, violence, drugs, crack, Reagonomics, and still, if you hear 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,' you're going to find a way to hum along. Guilty pleasures? It don't matter. Sue me - I like the song. To dance to it is another matter.

Every artist is supposed to get emotional. You're painting pictures of emotions.

I'm not really caught up with celebrity women. I think a regular girl that goes to school or works at a Complex or Spin or Blender or whatever, one of those magazines. She'd probably be flyer to me than the person she's writing about.

There are certain things that can be asked that get me excited. It's never a thing where I think I'm too good, I'm just the type of person who likes to be enlightened. I don't like to go through the motions.

My life is better than a lot of people I know. I'm definitely happy about that.

We lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Northwest D.C. I was essentially raised by a Panamanian man and a Jamaican woman. That's why I have such a fascination with Jamaican food.

I dated all these girls and ended up not liking them and thought to myself, 'What was it that all of them had in common?' They had too much time on their hands. Even though they were pretty, they lacked something. A woman could be less attractive but with ambition and drive, that's the most beautiful thing.

When we were in D.C. my daddy used to cut his hair with a bowl. Crucial. If you're African, Haitan, Jamaican or even more poor than the people in the project, you'll know about that.

May the optimism of tomorrow be your foundation for today.

All I'm saying is like, spoil me with your consistency
Always remain the same you
and you won't have to worry about a different me

When you're just reading a note card but when you're just reading a note card and it doesn't even feel real, it's difficult at times. But I have no problem doing interviews. So I have absolutely no problem doing interviews.

I can take an opinion, but I don't like when you try and spew hate and contaminate the way other people think. I feel like I'm one of the people that's always made music for the common man. That's why I don't really live my life the way I could. I don't stunt as much as I could stunt, 'cause that's not who my music is for.

No days off. I'm a workaholic.

I dated a lot, but I never really had anyone who was worthy of an anniversary. And most girlfriends never made it to a year, anyway.

I'm at like 325 pairs right now, give or take. But I've given away about 200 pairs of sneakers. I'm not as big of a collector as I used to be, because I think the game just got weird. Everybody likes to collect now, so it's kind of corny. But I got the essentials.

One thing Jay z told me that always sticks with me, is that, the album is never how you viewed it to be.

I worked at a hot dog place, a bagel place, the Jersey Store and the hottest fashion joint around. I was getting too famous to work there anymore. I was almost showing up as a joke. I made $2,000 on my show the previous night and I'm going to go shopping during my five-hour shift.

I go out, but not too much. When I'm on tour, I just write a lot of music and sleep.

Everything's pretty consistent in the industry, you know. There's a couple of naysayers, whatever, people who don't agree. But for the most part a lot of people believe in the new class of MC's that coming to the game.

I'm fortunate enough to be living my dreams and a lot of other peoples' dreams.

I'm a regular person. I know a lot of people love being famous. I don't like it. I'm just chillin'. YouknowwhatI'msayin'?

I don't be remembering women that I've met before. I don't remember people as a whole. It's crazy. A lot of times, people get in their feelings, like, 'You don't remember me?!'

Not everybody is a great rapper; not everybody lives for the art of lyricism.

You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

Mix-tapes are something that have been going on for a while. They've been pretty important to hip-hop for the past 10 years. It's the way we advertise our music to the public for free.

Life without dreaming is a life without meaning.

I hope everybody thinks they've got the best album. I wouldn't have put mine out if I didn't think it was the best.

Ambition is priceless, its something that's in your veins.

I'd love a super human memory. My memory has never been good.

The first thing that's important is to really have people believe in you. If you have that, you can do anything.

Hip-hop is all about impact, baby. You can sell records, you can be two-times platinum, you can be gold ... but if you lame, you lame, man. We try to provide the exact opposite of that. It's style, individuality, confidence. We exude that.

easy to dream a dream, though its harder to live it

In terms of 'Seinfeld', I think there's lot of reality in a show that's supposed to be about nothing.

I used to switch up my cologne every two to three months, get a new wave - Dolce, Versace, Burberry. But Black Orchid, that joint stayed. That's the smell of beauty that stays on you ... and girls love Tom Ford.

I want to be on a show that's not sensitive to racial jokes; I want to be on one where they call me everything and I call them right back. There's blatant racism going both ways. That's what we need.