Wale “Aspires to be the Best”

Wale has everything lined up. His second album Ambition is set to come out on November 1 and he just announced the dates for his accompany tour of the same name, set to kick off next week.

“I aspire to be the best,” Wale told XXLMag.com recently via phone from his New Orleans hotel room. “That’s not a knock on nobody. I come from playing football. I know what a depth chart looks like. A lot of niggas never saw a depth chart. When you’re name is fifth and there’s four niggas ahead of you, I didn’t sleep. When I went to Virginia State, I was eight because they didn’t know who I was. There was 12 running backs and I was eighth. I was small. The only reason I was eight because I ran like a 4.6 and them other niggas was drive slow. I didn’t sleep. I didn't fuck my girlfriend. But guess what, by the end of the spring I was second. That’s how I approach this rap shit. It’s a position I’m not comfortable in. that why I put out 20 free songs [on the Eleven One Eleven Theory mixtape]. That’s why I got more freestyles coming. That why I got 20 songs for [my] album right now that I have to pick."

Wale has just a few more weeks to finish recording for Ambition, and he plans to lay vocals on tracks until somebody from the record label tells him to turn the LP in.

“It feels done. That’s one of them Warner questions,” he answered about when he has to turn the project in. “If it was up to me, I would turn my album in the day before it’s supposed to come out. You’re talking to somebody who’s album leaked a month before his last album came out.”

Look for Wale and his Mayback Music family, Meek Mill, Pill and The Bawse Rick Ross on the cover of XXL's October issue, hitting stands on September 20. —Shaheem Reid