"The Success" borrows from the Eurythmics’ "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)". "Balloon" concludes with a pseudo-dancehall coda loosely riffing on Ini Komoze’s crossover "Here Comes the Hotstepper". Interpolation is one of the constants of Nothing. For someone who spends so much time decrying other rappers’ lifestyles, it’s a wonder why he is pantomiming at all. "The Girls on Drugs" cleverly samples Janet Jackson’s house party celebration "Go Deep", but isn’t packed with enough of Wale’s dour thoughts to sound like he’s doing anything more than cribbing Drake’s If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late flow.
The most unfortunate moment is "The One Time in Houston", an amateurish attempt at the city’s signature syrupy screw sound.
Nothing is a long album, with one cut coming in over the six-minute mark, and when it is sludgy, it is exhausting. It works so well that it’s almost surprising no one has done it before. He burrows into the background of "The Middle Finger", revealing his discomfort around other rappers and making a hook out of "Fuck you, leave me alone." On "The Glass Egg", he opts for cleverness over anger, upending Groove Theory’s "Tell Me" and flipping its lyrics ("I’ve been doing my own thing" "Tell me if you are for real") from their original incredulous-about-a-crush context into the cry of an outsider. Wale clearly remains frustrated with his inability to ascend to the top tier, and on Nothing he presents himself as a rap-industry antagonist. On "The Helium Balloon", one of the more interesting songs on the album, he laments his reception as an artist, adding "Still know what my core needs/ So fuck who ignores me." What follows isn’t so much the diligent fan service all this promises, though, so much as a muddied collage of attempts at current trends and a lot of sour disaffection. But Wale doesn’t have to rely on audio clips from "Seinfeld" anymore: He has Jerry, himself (the two are friends, and Jerry even name-dropped him as one of his "top five" in Top Five) providing the sound bites. And once again, the voice of Jerry Seinfeld acts as commentary, stitching the tracks together thematically. The intro is informed by go-go, D.C.’s signature reworking of funk, and a sound he used frequently early in his career. The Album About Nothing begins by holding a mirror to Wale’s past, which reflects some of the trappings of his more-famous present. So what does it mean that after all of this push-and-pull, his fourth studio album finds him gazing back towards his origins? Through it all, he struggled to exude palpable confidence. Wale promptly eschewed that sensibility for guest verses on songs like Waka Flocka Flame’s strip club paean "No Hands" and Ross’ my-cum-tastes-good commercial "Diced Pineapples". This was around the time when the first wave of "weirdo" nerd guys like himself, Charles Hamilton, a pre-pop B.o.B and Kid Cudi were springing forward-emotional, obsessed with melody, ambitious, accessible. And the critical failure of his last album, 2013’s The Gifted, must have shaken him to his core, because at first blush, his latest effort, The Album About Nothing, screams "return-to-form." Its title nods to his 2008 "Seinfeld"-referencing breakout The Mixtape About Nothing, a freebie hosted by Fool’s Gold impresario Nick Catchdubs. rapper has found success but has never seemed comfortable with it. Since his 2011 alliance with Rick Ross’ Maybach Music, the D.C. Wale’s alignment with the Top 40 rap crowd never felt like a healthy fit.
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