A big part of being a hip-hop star in 2010 is having to shoot down constant rumors from all sorts of haters. Wale is no acception. A gossip item surfaced recently claiming Interscope Records decided to drop Wale after the rapper’s 2009 debut ‘Attention: Deficit’ didn’t do as well as they would have hoped.
The story seems to have originally appeared online in All Hip-Hop‘s daily rumor dispatch. While the site simply published a one-line item questioning the rapper’s status, it quickly spread around on Twitter — where Wale boasts a high level of popularity. “N—– be pressed to make shyt up huh,” Wale responded to a user under the moniker Komani_Kastro. “What’s wack is that ur friend is blind … that’s some BS.”
While Wale was not dropped from Interscope, he is rightfully defensive and angry about the constant rumor mill. Fans and bloggers originally started questioning Wale’s label relationship when ‘Attention: Deficit’ came out and sold 28,000 copes in its first week. At that time, his manager came to his defense by citing the rapper’s Internet popularity as a saving grace.
“Wale’s the type of artist who is bigger than the metrics say he is,” said manager Daniel Weisman. “That puts the label in a tough position in terms of physical distribution and because of Twitter we are able to hear direct feedback from the fans about the problems they had actually finding the CD. But 64 percent of Wale’s sales came from digital outlets, which makes sense for Wale. It’s a testament to Interscope and their confidence in Wale’s brand that they put the record out without a big single.”
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