Wale Biography

Olubowale Folarin (born September 21, 1984), better known by his stage name Wale, is an hip hop artist from Washington, D.C. He rose to prominence in 2006, when his song "Dig Dug (Shake It)" became popular in his hometown. Wale became locally recognized and continued recording music for the regional audience.

Producer Mark Ronson discovered Wale in 2007 and signed Wale to his Allido Records in 2007. While signed to that label, Wale released several mixtapes and appeared in national media including MTV News and various urban magazines. In 2008, Wale signed to Interscope Records, and his debut album Attention Deficit was released in 2009 with the singles "Chillin", "Pretty Girls", and "My Sweetie".

Wale was born in Washington, D.C. His parents are of the Yoruba ethnic group of southwestern Nigeria and came to the United States from Austria in 1979. He has two older brothers, one of whom, Alvin, lives in New York City working for a record label. Wale's family first lived in the Northwest section of Washington.

His father worked as a cab driver in the D.C. area. He graduated from Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg in 2001 and moved to Largo, Maryland in 2003. Wale attended Robert Morris College and Virginia State University on football scholarships, then transferred to Bowie State University but dropped out. Wale's boyhood love of the game of football and the Washington Redskins has led to a longstanding rumor that Wale had a tattoo of tight end Chris Cooley.

"Rhyme of the Century" was Wale's first-ever song played on local radio. He was featured in the "Unsigned Hype" column of The Source. Wale signed to the young local label Studio 43 in 2006. "Dig Dug (Shake It)" became popular in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia and was a tribute to Robert "Dig Dug" Dixon, lead singer of go-go band Northeast Groovers. he song became the most requested song by a local artist in D.C. radio history and Wale was the first local artist to get any BDS spins since DJ Kool in the early 1990s. The song was included in Wale's first mixtape, Paint a Picture.

Wale won the award for "D.C. Metro Breakthrough Artist of the Year" at WKYS' Go-Go Awards in November 2006. On December 15, The Fader magazine associate editor Nick "Catchdubs" Barat visited Wale for an interview and photo shoot which appeared in the March 2007 issue of The Fader.

In an interview with Flavorwire, Wale said that he incorporates elements of go-go in his music. Cyril Cordor of allmusic described go-go as "a more raw, percussion-driven offshoot of disco" that originated in the Washington, D.C. area. Wale's early singles that were played primarily in his local metropolitan area heavily sampled 1980s go-go records. Reviewing Attention Deficit, David Jeffries of allmusic remarked that Wale had a "post-Kanye, post-Lil Wayne, alternative-meets-hardcore style" and commented that Wale's single "Chillin'", which featured Lady Gaga, "crafts an instant floor-filler out of a sample from the '70s hit 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye'".