The rap veteran brings his mental health battles to the forefront on the empowering new single from his forthcoming album
To many rap fans forged in the blog era, Wale’s cultural footprint is as well known as the admitted challenges he confronts on the new single “Mirroronnabenz.” With a backdrop where Afrobeat meets hip-hop soul, feeling both characteristic of and evolutionary for the Nigerian-American rapper, “Mirroronnabenz” finds Wale and producer BNYX (of the prolific Working on Dying collective) contemplating what the rapper has endured and where he’s going. It’s the latest single from Wale’s forthcoming eight studio album, everything is a lot., set for release on Nov. 14. It marks Wale’s first album in four years, since 2021’s Folarin II.
The first verse of “Mirroronnabenz” begins with Wale rapping, “Mirror mirror on the Benz who the flyest in the room?/Who inspired everybody that’s inspiring the youth?/I won’t toot my own horn, I’m just clarinet to you.” He goes on to get deeper: “And I know you just a mirror but my fear is only you/Therefore them lil’ boys ain’t nowhere near you/Don’t care but just annoyed that they be playing you/Those years of paranoia probably took a toll/But depression gets old, mirror it ain’t only you.”
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“‘Mirroronnabenz’ is a self-affirmation anthem,” Wale told Rolling Stone in a statement. “Black men don’t talk enough about mental health and our internal struggle. When we go through challenges, it’s important we pick ourselves up, remind ourselves that we’re fly and that we’re blessed. This is the soundtrack for when you’re having a conversation in the mirror before you go to work or get on stage. It’s about blocking out the noise to do what you do. You put that shit on this morning.”
Back in 2016, a lyrical exchange between friends J. Cole and Wale revealed the mental health issues Wale takes head on in “Mirroronnabenz.” Cole released the single “False Prophets,” with a verse Wale has since acknowledged was about him, in which Cole raps, “I got a homie, he a rapper and he wanna win bad/He want the fame, the acclaim, the respect that’s been had/By all the legends, so every time I see him, he stressin’/Talkin’ ’bout, ni—as don’t f–ck with him, the sh–t is depressin’/And I know he so bitter he can’t see his own blessings.” Wale released his own track, “Groundhog Day,” in response, where he admitted, “It hit home cause there’s some truth, this I know/This a cycle, I get psycho/When shit get dark.”
