True Hip Hop culture enthusiasts will respect Wale’s contribution while surface fans will overlook him, as was the case in a recent article by GQ Fashion Editor Mark Anthony Green.
In the story, Green focuses on Kid Cudi’s contribution to music (calling him Hip Hop’s Peter Pan) and reminds readers he appeared on the cover of XXL’s Freshmen Cover in 2009 alongside Asher Roth, Charles Hamilton, Blu, Mickey Factz, Ace Hood, B.o.B, Cory Gunz, and Wale.
He then suggests readers google the names because they are either not familiar or irrelevant.
Hip Hop specific writer Eric Diep, who didn’t contribute to the GQ article, picked up on the line and appeared to be astonished that the writer would suggest that Wale was irrelevant and tweeted about the “shade” Green was throwing Wale’s way and tweeted the line in the article. Unfortunately, Wale misunderstood his intention when he tweeted the line and took it as Diep being disrespectful.
Diep pleaded his case but what resulted was a full-out Hip-Hop discussion on relevancy, what qualifies one to be a writer of hip-hop culture and a few other music-related topics. Amazingly enough, Green never got pulled into the discussion directly.
To see the exchanges between Wale, Eric Diep and other people who chimed in, flip the pages.