Wale and JB Smoove on Rap Battles, Writer’s Block, and the Genius of South Park

Between live shows, late nights in the studio, and recent collaborations with Pusha T and Anthony Edwards, of all people, the 41-year-old rapper Wale carved out some time last month to catch up with an old friend: the comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm legend JB Smoove. “Eighth joint, man,” he said, almost as if he were surprised by his staying power in a famously cutthroat industry. After a brief hiatus, the Grammy-nominated superstar returns this Friday with everything is a lot., a confessional body of work that dives headfirst into the chaos of fame, faith, and feeling, well, everything. Across 18 tracks, the first-generation Nigerian and DMV native—who’s spent nearly two decades bringing backpack rap to the Billboard charts—trades bravado for vulnerability, writing with the wisdom and precision of an old pro. “Me and you are both kind of in the same boat,” said Smoove. “An artist has to entertain people, move the world and move the needle.” Below, the two trade stories from the cutting edge of the rap and comedy worlds.—OLAMIDE OYENUSI

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JB SMOOVE: What’s up, kiddo?

WALE: What’s up, man?

SMOOVE: What up? What up?

WALE: Promo run. Just barely sleeping. Barely know what day it is.

SMOOVE: Man, you know how that is. We always on the grind, man. We trying to build a better mousetrap, you know what I’m saying?

WALE: Yep.

SMOOVE: It’s good to be wanted and it’s good to be busy and it’s good to be Wale. So why not?

WALE: You ain’t lie.

SMOOVE: To be in motion is beautiful, you know what I mean? Shit, I’m excited about this new album you got coming out though, bro. I’m excited about your movement, man.

WALE: Eighth Joint, man.

SMOOVE: Eighth Joint? Man, I didn’t know it was eight.

WALE: Think my first album came out like 2009 or something like that.

SMOOVE: It’s crazy how time flies like that, man.

WALE: Definitely crazy. A lot done changed about this industry…

SMOOVE: See, I like hearing that because I know, as artists, we have to constantly evolve. So we got to be relevant, we got to be creative, we got to stand out from the rest, and we got to make our mark. And sometimes you end up being unaccredited with being a pace car for that time period, you know what I’m saying? So people, not that they’re going to do exactly what you do, but we are influenced by what we hear through our ears and see through our eyes. Our senses really propel us into a certain direction. And that goes the same for comedians. We’re influenced by what we are allowed to do and what we are allowed to say.

WALE: Now I think it’s different, too, because the way people are censored now as opposed to how it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago—I don’t even know if it’s a bad thing or a good thing. I can’t even tell. But I know it’s definitely a lot of paranoia. What you can say, what you can’t say…

SMOOVE: Yeah, I think it really forces your creativity.

WALE: Yeah. I remember just being in school. From playing football and going to HBCU to getting thrown right into this music business, I think that joint helped me deal with a lot of stuff I can’t control.

SMOOVE: I always feel like you go through everything you go through in order for you to bleed that off on other people, because they see what goes into it. We’ve got to be relatable at all times. I know that’s what comedians have to do–be relatable. My process is, “If I can get you with the premise, I’ve got you with the punchline.” You know what I mean?

WALE: Right, right, right. My premise is: roll out, lead them in the water so I can get to the punchline, which is the project, almost like a movie director or whatever. But it’s very crowded now. I don’t think it was ever meant to be this much stuff going on at one time. 

SMOOVE: It’s overwhelming.

WALE: 700 movie premieres, 700 TV show premieres. But like you said, that’s what makes it like, “All right, I’ve got to work on my shit so I can crack the code to get into this joint.” You know what I’m saying?

SMOOVE: Yeah, I go through that all the time. Me and you are both kind of in the same boat. An artist has to entertain people, move the world and move the needle. But I also think, on some level, we have a responsibility to people. On some level, we have to be psychiatrists.

WALE: Absolutely. The best comedians are like shrinks to me. They know what’s going on and they know how to talk about their feelings. They’re really emotionally intelligent, more than the average man. It’s the same thing with music, you’ve got to hit all the points of feeling.

SMOOVE: So you get this new album out, everything is a lot. Do you ever have to almost step outside yourself? I know artists, we’ve got a tendency to overthink things. For myself, I always try to write forward, to write things that won’t be judged by time. I don’t do current events. I just do stupid shit that I think is crazy and wild, you know what I mean?

WALE: I didn’t learn that until my fourth album, probably. Because you could really say something that just dates everything, and then you lose the oomph for real. It still sounds good, but people be like, “What does that mean?” That’s a valuable, valuable lesson.

SMOOVE: Yeah, man. You’ve got to be a time traveler. You’ve got to think forward a little bit in order for the timeline to match up. 

WALE: Everybody but South Park. They will tell you what happened yesterday, man.

SMOOVE: South Park will have your ass dead. They’re going to assassinate your ass. You’d be like, “Yo man, what the fuck is going on?” South Park is good. South Park be ahead of the game, man. The Simpsons and freaking South Park, they are time travelers, man.

WALE: And that’s a testament to their longevity, because they made stuff that was timeless, you know? Playing with the idea of what next year could be like.

SMOOVE: And that’s all you can ask for. It’s hard being on top. That’s a lot of weight on you, man.

WALE: And then it’s a juggling act too.

SMOOVE: You start giving people what they want instead of being in your pocket and being creative. I know what it is, though. It’s like your golf swing, because if you think about golf in the sense of being creative, you want to be effortless. When you first start, you hate that ball, you hate that club. That ball ain’t going where you want it to go. And you spend a lot of time with that ball and the club. You see them so much, man, you’ve almost got to go to bed with it. You’ve got to have that club in your hand and three balls in your pocket in your pajamas so you could feel that shit when you land in the bed like, “God damn, these balls hurting my leg!” You know what I mean?

WALE: Right.

SMOOVE: But when you get good, you don’t even see the ball that much. 

WALE: It’s that fluidity. I’m at Topgolf focusing, struggling. The girl hitting it 1,000 yards further than me.

SMOOVE: You’re hitting that bitch over there. This shit going backwards.

WALE: The club done fell out of my hand.

SMOOVE: But once you master your shit, it’s effortless, man. It’s almost like you’re not even thinking about it no more. 

WALE: 10,000 hours. Even now, I be telling everybody to trust their 10,000 hours, but sometimes I get in my phase where I can’t trust my 10,000 hours. I be like, “I can’t do this.” Because I know how good I can get, you know what I’m saying?

SMOOVE: Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you’re not even competing with everybody else, you’re competing with yourself.

WALE: That’s the hardest person to compete with. I’m better than a lot of dudes, so I try to compete with myself, but man, sometimes that bar be high. But what about the joke thieves, man? It must be a crazy thing to watch, especially with YouTube. Back in the day people was probably getting away with it, but it’s probably crazy now.

SMOOVE: Oh, it’s crazy now—if you are different, if you are original. People say it’s a compliment, and in some way it is a compliment. You want people to be encouraged by you, to be influenced by you. It’s different than emulating what someone actually does. You can be like, “Damn, I became a better comic listening to JB.” Or, “I became a better rapper listening to Wale.” To be influenced by somebody is different. That means, “Man, his work ethic, his timing…” In comedy, we’ve got rules that we’ve got to stick to. Great intro, a certain amount of laughs per minute. 

WALE: Damn, certain amount of laughs per minute?

SMOOVE: Yeah man. I’m going to find my old comedy book. It’s 10 rules to comedy. There’s fiery intro, staying in character, three laughs per minute. Also, know when to leave the stage and say, “Thank you very much, I love you all.” When you think about that right there, those 10 things, and you put it in perspective and give that to a young comic and say, “Look, this is all you need. Be yourself, but apply these rules right here, and work on this.” That’s me giving you something to build you, not build you doing me. You know what I mean?

WALE: Right. 

SMOOVE: You know how many times I’ve seen my bits in commercials? I’m a guy that does a lot of commercials. You know how many times they get lazy in the marketing and ad world and they’ll take even a little piece of your joke. People say, “Yo man, they’re doing your shit on this commercial!” They do it all the time, because they get lazy, man, or they get writer’s block.

WALE: That block ain’t no joke. 

SMOOVE: It happens in the industry because we’re in a creative field. You will always have those kinds of things going on, man. And it’s insulting because you know what you went through to work on that bit, to work on your show, to get that thing fine-tuned, and then—

WALE: They come and take it.

SMOOVE: And it’s like, “God damn it.” Did you have any big challenges on this new album? 

WALE: I think finishing it was kind of hard, because I wrote so many great verses and then it’s like, “Maybe I should end the song here.” Then it’s like, “Nah, nah, I’ve got to do another one.” Or just trying to make certain things better, or sometimes a feature didn’t finish it all the way or whatever. Trying to fix things that weren’t me, but I had to fix it anyway. It was challenging, but it tells me what I’ve got to do. For the next one, I’ve got to make sure we just do it in a certain span, with 2 or 3 producers tops. Keep it all under one roof, because that was all over the place.

SMOOVE: I was going to ask you that, man. I know producers come in all forms, and I know you can use different producers to get a certain sound you want for that particular idea. You collaborate a lot, and I love that you collaborate and let the people who collaborate with you do what they do. I just love it, man. And one of my favorite songs is “Running Back,” I love that joint. 

WALE: Thank you, man. I was lucky to get Lil’ Wayne to sit there for a little bit, because he was moving around a lot around that time. He was the busiest man in show business.

SMOOVE: I never owned a Lil’ Wayne album.

WALE: Oh, yeah? 

SMOOVE: Man, look, I’m in a weird pocket. I’m old school, but I’ve found a way to stay relevant in the mix, you know what I mean?

WALE: Right.

SMOOVE: Some of us are old-school, but somehow we just stayed old-school.

WALE: But it’s there because hip-hop is so young. I technically don’t think there is any real old-school no more, because compared to them rock dudes who’ve been doing it for a long, long time, hip-hop is still kind of new. You know what I’m saying?

SMOOVE: You’re talking about a guy who used to have a fake ID and get into clubs downtown in New York, man. The real overall brushstroke of hip-hop and culture, I literally lived that. I was going downtown on a 2 train from the Bronx all the way downtown, man. You name any old-school rap artists, I’ve seen them before they became on wax. 

WALE: That must’ve been such a time compared to what it is now.

SMOOVE: We had DJ battles in the parks with whoever had the loudest system. They would stack up speakers, man, all the way to the third floor. They would climb up ladders to put speakers, as many as they could, stack them up, and it was all about who had the loudest system. Some cats used the crossfader, some cats used up and down. Wale, man, I done been in some of the dopest parties in the inception of hip hop and the inception of rap. I was at Roseland when the Disco 3 changed their name to The Fat Boys.

WALE: The same night?

SMOOVE: I was there. Supreme Team performed, they had a big launch party, and the Disco 3 changed their name to The Fat Boys. I was at the fun house, man, back in the day when Andre Harrell was in Jekyll and Hyde. 

WALE: I don’t want to be cynical but man, it’s so opposite to now. Now it’s phones out, it’s chattering going on. That purity is gone.

SMOOVE: You know that scene in 8 Mile where everybody’s in that Bad Boy party and they had that rap battle?

WALE: Yep, yep.

SMOOVE: That’s how it used to be. You’re sweating, it’s crowded, everybody going crazy. It was like that, bro. 

WALE: I would love to be in something like that.

SMOOVE: I wouldn’t change it for the world, bro. The speed now, people don’t take the time to embrace what people do. They take more time to judge it.

WALE: And analyze and critique it.

SMOOVE: Back then, that’s all we had. But who would know that shit would go on wax? I’m seeing these guys in a block party performing, something they loved to do. And they had their own equipment, and they wasn’t getting paid. Some of them dudes had 10 people in their crew just hanging out. I used to be a record boy, man. I’m from Mount Vernon, so my cousins used to battle Heavy D & The Boyz before they became Heavy D & The Boyz. They used to battle, and I used to do the flyers. My flyers looked like a fucking ransom note. [Laughs] “Have the money or your relative is dead.”

WALE: Creativity.

SMOOVE: Who are we looking forward to working with, man? 

WALE: That’s a great question, man. I think it’s changing now, because I don’t know what I’m going to do after this album yet. I’ve got to push the envelope creatively, so it might not even be a traditional musician. I’ve just got to see where I lead me, man. I’ve got to follow what makes me excited. You know what I’m saying?

SMOOVE: I love that. A philosopher, man, someone who’s speaking some real shit.

WALE: That’s the goal, JB. I hope that whatever we do, the art and the taste level is there. That’s my number one goal, because they’re going to say what they’re going to say, but as long as our people appreciate the taste level and the effort, I can live with that.

SMOOVE: I think I’m the same way, man. I just want to work with dope people and make timeless comedic art that’s always going to be relevant, you know what I mean?

WALE: I hope I just keep being inspired. I don’t want bad things to have to happen for me to be inspired every time.

SMOOVE: That’s really what it is, man. As a comedian, I’ve got to be able to talk about music, talk about the birds, talk about news, talk about my relationships, talk about struggles—and make it funny. And that way, it’s relevant to everyone. I think music is the same thing. You guys got to always be a little ahead, you’ve got to always have people’s ear, and you’ve got to always have them bopping their fucking head. You know what I mean?

WALE: JB, you know where I’m at, man.

SMOOVE: Stay in contact, man, and keep building. I love you, bro.

WALE: Love you too, bro. Stay up.

SMOOVE: Let’s keep going.