\n<\/p>\n
The rap veteran brings his mental health battles to the forefront on the empowering new single from his forthcoming album <\/p>\n
\n\tTo many rap fans forged in the blog era, Wale\u2019s cultural footprint is as well known as the admitted challenges he confronts on the new single \u201cMirroronnabenz.\u201d With a backdrop where Afrobeat meets hip-hop soul, feeling both characteristic of and evolutionary for the Nigerian-American rapper, \u201cMirroronnabenz\u201d finds Wale and producer BNYX (of the prolific Working on Dying collective) contemplating what the rapper has endured and where he\u2019s going. It\u2019s the latest single from Wale\u2019s forthcoming eight studio album, everything is a lot.<\/em>, set for release on Nov. 14. It marks Wale\u2019s first album in four years, since 2021\u2019s Folarin II<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe first verse of \u201cMirroronnabenz\u201d begins with Wale rapping, \u201cMirror mirror on the Benz who the flyest in the room?\/Who inspired everybody that\u2019s inspiring the youth?\/I won\u2019t toot my own horn, I\u2019m just clarinet to you.\u201d He goes on to get deeper: \u201cAnd I know you just a mirror but my fear is only you\/Therefore them lil\u2019 boys ain\u2019t nowhere near you\/Don\u2019t care but just annoyed that they be playing you\/Those years of paranoia probably took a toll\/But depression gets old, mirror it ain\u2019t only you.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\t\u201c\u2018Mirroronnabenz\u2019 is a self-affirmation anthem,\u201d Wale told Rolling Stone<\/em> in a statement. \u201cBlack men don\u2019t talk enough about mental health and our internal struggle. When we go through challenges, it\u2019s important we pick ourselves up, remind ourselves that we\u2019re fly and that we\u2019re blessed. This is the soundtrack for when you\u2019re having a conversation in the mirror before you go to work or get on stage. It\u2019s about blocking out the noise to do what you do. You put that shit on this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBack in 2016, a lyrical exchange between friends J. Cole and Wale revealed the mental health issues Wale takes head on in \u201cMirroronnabenz.\u201d Cole released the single \u201cFalse Prophets,\u201d with a verse Wale has since acknowledged was about him, in which Cole raps, \u201cI got a homie, he a rapper and he wanna win bad\/He want the fame, the acclaim, the respect that\u2019s been had\/By all the legends, so every time I see him, he stressin\u2019\/Talkin\u2019 \u2019bout, ni\u2014as don\u2019t f\u2013ck with him, the sh\u2013t is depressin\u2019\/And I know he so bitter he can\u2019t see his own blessings.\u201d Wale released his own track, \u201cGroundhog Day,\u201d in response, where he admitted, \u201cIt hit home cause there\u2019s some truth, this I know\/This a cycle, I get psycho\/When shit get dark.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019s cultural footprint is as well known as the admitted challenges he confronts on the new single \u201cMirroronnabenz.\u201d With a backdrop where Afrobeat meets hip-hop soul,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[16762,16761,8727,16760],"class_list":{"0":"post-28181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bnyx","9":"tag-mirroronnabenz","10":"tag-reflective","11":"tag-wale"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n