Name: Olubowale Victor Akintimehin
Birth Date: 10/21/1984
Videos: 231
Interviews: 29
Featured in: 272
Playlists: 761
Twitts: 20
Comments: ?
Pictures: 0 | Upload picture »
Send "Wale" Ringtone to your Cell
www.walemusic.com
Olubowale Victor Akintimehin (born November 21, 1984), better known by his stage name Wale (pronounced /wɑːleɪ/), is a Nigerian-American hip hop artist. He rose to prominence in 2006, when his song "Dig Dug (Shake It)" became popular in Washington, D.C. Wale has released five widely recognized mixtapes. His first full length album, Attention Deficit, was released on November 10, 2009.Wale was born in Washington, DC to parents who immigrated from Nigeria in 1979. 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.
"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. The 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.
In July 2006, Wale hired Daniel Weisman, a former club DJ and promoter, as his manager. In September 2006, after dropping another go-go influenced single, "Breakdown", sampled from Huck-a-Bucks "Sexy Girl", and a mention in The Washington Post, Wale released his first non-go-go original single, "Uptown Roamers." On September 14, 2006, "Uptown Roamers" debuted on XM Radio Channel 66 and was played twice in one day. Both "Breakdown" and "Uptown Roamers" were on Wale's second mixtape, Hate Is the New Love. Wale's song "Breakdown," was featured on the video game Madden NFL 2009.
In early December 2006, Wale won the award for "D.C. Metro Breakthrough Artist of the Year" at WKYS' Go-Go Awards . 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.
Sources: Wikipedia.
biography »
