Review Summary: A somewhat lame, sometmes good, off beat tribute to the greatest TV show of all time. More About Nothing is definitely not as good the previous tribute mixtape.
I love Seinfeld. It’s possibly the greatest tv show ever. From the astute observational comedy to the well-developed and lovable characters, there’s nothing to hate about the show. So when I heard that rap musician Wale made mix tapes sampling and referencing Seinfeld, I was giddy. I had never listened to Wale before, but I had to listen to this. As much as I loved the Seinfeld references, I was thoroughly disappointed with the music within. This mix tape,
More About Nothing, is the lame sequel to an average mix tape. It relies too much on a gimmick to get the listener through. What lies here is a fun shtick, but poor beats and sloppy lyrics.
Wale is a decent rapper in and of himself, with a good mid-paced flow and awesome breath control. He keeps it on point and on beat, never straying too far outside of the music. However, flow is nothing if there aren’t good lyrics to go with it. Wale really does rap about nothing, with pointless, tired punchlines and run-of-the-mill, “good life” lyrics. He’s boring to the point of making KRS-One’s new material sound good. Wale’s voice isn’t very interesting either. He tries to come off as a cross between Wiz Khalifa and Lloyd Banks. This leaves Wale’s voice droning and grating, making it hard to listen to him. The direction taken here is boring and uninspired, as if this was a quick put together album with no substance.
The production isn’t very interesting either. Pianos and synths clash unnaturally, trying to put Roots-esque funk and hazy atmospherics together. At other times there are swashes of ambience and uninspired soul samples.
More About Nothing tries to run a gamut of styles, but more often than not it tries too hard. It can’t keep a single thing straight without running off into some pointless repetition or mixing things that don’t work together. Basically, Wale is a poor beat selector, and I fear for his future releases.
There are some inspired moments, where Wale truly comes into the spotlight. Sometimes he lets loose a flurry of awesome punchlines, or sometimes he has a nice, heavy beat to flow over. These moments are rare however, and in the end we end up with a disappointing tape. The best part of all of this is the fun and geeky Seinfeld samples. Lots of classic episodes and even the popping bass show up. At least Wale has decent taste in Seinfeld episodes.
Maybe this mix tape truly took the Seinfeld theme, and made it “about nothing”. After all, taking something like that true to heart can end up leaving you with a record like this. Full of bad lyricism and lame beats, but a fun shtick,
More About Nothing is a pretty terrible affair. It certainly doesn’t do Seinfeld justice, but it tries. For that it gets a 3, but Seinfeld worthy this is not.
