My 'Ambition' Review

Before I say anything, let me say this; This review is coming from a Wale fan. A real one. Not a person who never heard of Wale until 'No Hands' or didn't care for him until he signed with Rick Ross' Maybach Music Group. Long story short, there's no bandwagon business here.

With that said...

I want to see Wale win. Always have. As far as mixtapes go, he has a few classics and in my opinion he's one of the best pure lyricists in the game. His previous association with Interscope and Roc Nation looked like a great career move. I mean how could you go wrong with Jimmy Iovine and Jay-Z behind you, right? I thought so too. However, we watched a dope album called Attention Deficit underachieve due to being undershipped and underappreciated. 

We know what happened next...

Wale would sign to MMG in hopes of bettering his career. By the looks of it, he did just that, but anybody who is truly familiar with Wale's catalog will tell you that talent-wise, he doesn't go as hard as he used to. Since joining MMG, Wale released a mixtape called The Eleven One Eleven Theory. It was decent but it didn't move me like More About Nothing and Songs About Nothing did. Even the Hate Is The New Love Wale took me to a place that this most recent joint didn't.

As for the album?

Ambition is a cool project. My favorite joints on the album would have to be 'Don't Hold Your Applause', 'Double M Genius' and 'Focused', which features KiD CuDi (for those who don't know, that track was the result of the two squashing their brief, and corny, feud). As a whole, I can't say I rock with Ambition like I did Attention Deficit. One thing I hated was the fact that this album was entirely too heavy on the R&B features. It's gotta be some kind of record to have Ne-Yo, Lloyd, Miguel and Jeremih all on the same project. I think the only relevant singers who didn't make the album were Trey Songz and Chris Brown. Sheesh, Wale! I get it though. He's catering his female audience that he gained after making joints like 'Diary' and 'Ambitious Girl'. Cool, I guess. Although I wish he was, lyrically Wale wasn't at his full potential this time around. I also wish there would have been more of the Go-Go influenced songs. Wale was kinda on to something when he began incorporating that into his music, and he should've run with it.

I don't know. Maybe for Ambition Wale decided to dumb it down, which would be wack, but these rappers do it all the time. Maybe not. Either way, I didn't drop any bread on this project other than for the songs I liked (so like 3 bucks). Maybe he should've named THIS album Attention Deficit because I was kind of bored, honestly.

Do remember: the views expressed above are mine. They're not up for debate either. If you still want to check out Ambition for yourself, then by all means go HERE and download it.