Wale Talks New Album, Due in September

After years of building a name for himself grassroots-style with witty lyrics on free mixtapes, Wale is finally gearing up to release an official debut album. The D.C.-bred rapper floored us last summer with his clever and hilarious Seinfeld-themed Mixtape About Nothing, and his milestones have only continued from there. He has toured the country, released the highly collaborative mixtape, Back to the Feature, signed a co-management deal with Jay-Z's Roc Nation and even earned some comparisons to Hova himself. It's been a wild year, and with Attention: Deficit dropping this September, he's just trying not to let all the buzz go to his head.

"I don't really focus too much on the good," he tells Paste. "I don't bask in like the smell of success...You never want to believe your own hype or take yourself too seriously in this business. As soon as you start smelling yourself, the honesty and integrity in the music diminishes."

And while he's keeping his ego in check, Wale still faces some other hurdles. In particular, he's working hard to make his transition from mixtape to major-label debut as smooth as possible. "I mean, I'm one of the first artists to kind of test that out because I've been laying the foundation now for so many years, you know, and that's enabled me to go and tour 40 cities without the album out," he says. "But now it's like a lot of—millions of other people don't know who I am, so I have to try and not insult the intelligence of my previous fans, but also introduce myself to the new ones. So, it's kind of like a battle I'm faced with with this album."

Attention: Deficit will be released on Sept. 22 via Interscope/Allido, and features production by the likes of Mark Ronson, Cool and Dre, and TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, as well as collaborations with Bun B and K'Naan.