Search - Wale Oyejide :: One Day Everything Changed

Amazing....just amazing.... (4.5 Stars actually)

Zeb91 | Seattle, WA | 03/21/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"For a man to go from an instrumental hip hop album to this, which is quite the opposite, and do them both almost perfectly is very interesting. While Wale's project as Science Fiction received a lot of critical acclaim for his amazing musical collages this album here is just Wale performing everything. All the instruments & vocals were done by him except on the few tracks with verses from some amazing emcees. Wale is from Nigeria and you get that African feel on a most of these tracks, whether it is from his voice or from his drum patterns that he creates. The intro track is amazing even if it is not even 2 minutes long. That is a problem on a lot of this album the songs you want to be longer are incredibly short. Wale is singing on this album and his voice is very interesting. Unlike a lot of singers today he actually has a voice that he can use as an instrument which proves to be very nice. His lyrics range from politics to love to life and they are all backed by some amazing sounds. The three emcees he recruits are perfect for this project and while they dominate the tracks they are on they do not take away from the whole Wale Oyejide experience throughout the album. If you looking for some smooth mellow music to have in the background or if you in just one of those odd moods put this in your deck, it is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and make you problems disappear (at least for the duration of the album)."

Science Fact

justin d. baron | joplin, mo | 09/20/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As far as I know, this is Wale Oyejide's second major release---coming after Walls Don't Exist under Wale's "Science Fiction" alias. It's easy to identify One Day Everything Changed as the work of the same artist, but enough differences are in place to make one understand why he chose to release it under a different name.



Walls Don't Exist had a lot of vocals on it, but still gets talked about as an instrumental release. That might not be too unreasonable; the vocals could be pretty subtle at times. At one point in the liner notes, Wale Oyejide even challenged the listener to try and figure out what he was saying in a particular song.



One Day Everything Changed doesn't make any such challenges; the vocal parts are put into the forefront, making for a more confident sounding album. Guest MCs like Doom and Jay Dilla work really well with his production, though the result is a sound I'm not sure I've encountered before (that last thought applies to about all of Oyejide's work). Oyejide's Nigerian roots have their place alongside the American hip-hop he seems to have grown up listening to. The lyrical material covers a wider array of topics, from politics to relationships, and the music seems a lot more focused; less meandering is going on. Not that the "meandering" was bad, I liked Walls Don't Exist a lot, but where that album seemed more like a collection of separate tracks he had made, this one's a little more unified.



His sound has noticeably developed---instead of mood for the sake of mood, here mood is used to evoke more clearly expressed ideas and emotions. All together, you get a better picture of the artist making the music. Wale's traditional hip-hop influences are also a lot closer to the surface, though I don't want to suggest that this isn't a little progressive by traditional hip-hop standards. Wale spends most of his time singing, so if you're not down with that, you might want to listen to some samples before you buy (although I got to say that would be a ridiculous reason not to like it).



I've been enjoying this record a lot. If he keeps trying, this guy is going to keep getting better, and if things work like they are supposed to you'll be hearing a lot more about him as time goes on. Even if it doesn't end up being your thing, you've got to admit there's something there."