Wale Wants to Be Friends With Lady Gaga

Crashing Hulkshare isn't the only first on Wale's résumé. Young Folarin is the first rapper to release a single featuring pop juggernaut Lady Gaga. Sure, Flo Rida guested on Gaga's "Strarstruck" off of the singer's 2008 debut, The Fame; and the chorus to Kid Cudi's 2009 single "Make Her Say" sampled Gaga's "Poker Face," but Wale's "Chillin"—the lead single from the former XXL Freshman's 2009 debut, Attention Deficit—marks the first and only time Gaga's performed on a rap song.

"My niggas always talk about that shit, especially the most muthafuckin’ streets niggas," Wale tells XXL. "They be like, 'You know you did a song with Lady Gaga, a real song.' It’s cool, it’s probably something that I’ll probably use later to brag about. It’s not much of an accolade if I work with somebody. I just wanna be respected for what I do."

Make no mistake about it, Wale and Gaga never had a personal relationship. The single was all business. The D.C. MC was Gaga's Interscope labelmate at the time the song was recorded.

"I don’t even know if she talk to rappers," Wale joked. "It’d be cool to have a friend that was that famous and then she could tell me the weird shit that goes when you doing shows for a million dollars. I wanna know all the weird shit that goes on behind them contracts."—Carl Chery

Tune in to XXLMag.com tomorrow (August 23) to read Wale discuss the target he put on his back, among other topics.