- [Andrew] How do you feel about that?
- Pretty good. - Yeah?
- My momma make it better though.
- Hey, what's up?
I'm Andrew and this is Chew It Up,
a show where we talk identity over food
from the guest's cultural background.
Each episode, I'll sit down with your favorite artists
and we'll share traditional and exotic dishes
from that artist' background.
Check it out now.
Hey, everybody, Andrew Santiago here.
We're here on Chew It Up,
a show about finding and exploring identity through food.
My first guest, a walking catalog of hits, Mr. Wale.
Wale, thank you so much for joining me today.
- I appreciate it, though.
- You're so multi-hyphenate, right?
You're like a poet, you're like a rapper,
you're like a sneaker enthusiast.
- Three jobs.
- You're just working, man.
I know you got "BGM", that's out.
I know you got "On Chill", two fire singles.
Usually if an artist is dropping singles,
maybe there's like an album coming.
- Absolutely, very very soon.
Sooner than you think.
- I know you're Nigerian so we got some Nigerian dishes
for you to try out for lunch today.
As you know, we're here to explore culinary dishes,
get nostalgic, talk about growing up, all through food.
Are you ready for the first dish?
- You had me at food. - Food, food!
(tape fast-forwarding)
First up is Moinmoin.
Besides being a really cool word to say,
it's a savory cake made of black eyed peas,
and I thought it'd be a great dish to start with.
Do you know this dish, are you familiar with it?
- Yeah, my mother used to cook this.
- [Andrew] Oh, so it's something you grew up with.
Tell me a little bit about it.
- You gotta like soak the beans for like a long time
and put 'em in the blender and you put it in like aluminum.
Aluminum, - Aluminum.
- That's how my mother say it.
You put it in aluminum foil and bada boom, bada bing.
So a lot of times they put boiled egg or fish in there,
corned beef or something like that.
- Is that like a surprise, you find it in in the middle?
It's like, oh, gotcha, here's some fish.
- Yep, yep.
- Man, that's nice.
The consistency, the flavor, really unexpected.
- I think the word bean probably throws people off.
I didn't realize it was made out of beans 'til I got older.
- Your family's Nigerian, right?
You were born in DC. - Yep.
- So this is something you ate growing up,
is this like a thing you would like ask for, like
"Ma, we gotta have this."
- We didn't really ask my mother to make nothing like,
you know what I'm saying? - [Andrew] I hear that.
- I wish, know what I'm sayin',
but we just had to eat what she made
and she was makin' this.
- Did your mother do the thing that my mother did
when you were like, "What's for dinner?"
she'd be like, "Food!" - Yeah, yeah.
- [Andrew] Sit down and eat it.
- Yeah, that was one of those times.
But, and this happened with a lot of my family members,
but when we got older, we started wanting the foods
that we was eating growing up.
I guess when I eat it I kind of, you know, reminisce.
- I talk a lot about like struggle meals, right?
When I was growing up there wasn't always
like nice stuff to eat for me.
A struggle meal's like when you grab
whatever's in the fridge, you sort of throw it together.
- Eggs, man. - [Andrew] Eggs?
- Eggs, dawg, eggs and rice.
- Eggs and rice, yes.
- Eggs gonna taste like whatever you put
on top of it or noodles.
- Right, you just said all three of the best ingredients.
Bon appétit, how you feel about that?
- Pretty good. - Yeah?
- My momma make it better though.
(upbeat music)
- We're gonna ask some more questions.
How supportive was your family
when you wanted to be like an entertainer?
- First of all, if you not a doctor or lawyer,
it's over with, it's over with.
They're not trying to hear nothing
about your ambitions or your goals.
She wasn't phased by no record deals
or no single or an award, nothing.
It took awhile.
- Did seeing you like perform change something?
- I think my mother probably only seen me perform
like twice. - Really?
How meaningful is that for you when she does see you?
- I mean, it was weird. (laughs).
It was weird.
That's probably her texting me now,
she wanna talk about it.
But she know, I mean she proud though.
- Of course.
- We got cultural differences.
- Like sometimes family don't know how to talk
about stuff they aren't used to doing.
Let me take you back a little bit,
your first big hit, that first big check comes in.
You wanna celebrate.
What'd you do with your family?
- Bought my father a car.
Again, that's one of the things that make it easier for them
to understand like, okay, this is a sustainable career.
- These are the things that come with it.
- Yeah, exactly.
- [Andrew] How's the food though?
- [Wale] It was good.
- [Andrew] Good, yeah, I liked it too.
- The rice was a little undercooked.
- For your taste? - For my taste.
- [Andrew] Okay, like a little,
a little softer? - Little softer.
- Let's get into this.
- This is a, yard vibes, right?
- How's that?
I'm fighting with the food.
- It'll be worth it, it'll be worth it.
(relaxed music)
Would highly recommend.
- That's great.
- Nine out of ten.
- So what are the advantages, you think,
of like having immigrant parents growing up in the US?
- I mean, work ethic.
My mother and father, like they worked
tirelessly through it, you know what I'm saying?
And that's all I know is work now.
When I'm not working, I'm uncomfortable,
I don't know what to do with myself.
Idle time, I don't even know what that means.
Go to school, and work, you sleep.
- Everybody's busy.
- Never really kick it like that with them.
- That's why you as young as you are
and as prolific as you are.
- I am prolific though. - [Andrew] You are.
- The hard camp, they're prolific as...
- Prolific.
Shout out to the immigrant parents,
the immigrant communities bringing that hard work,
that ethic. - We love y'all.
- That's right.
So if you were gonna tell folks like one thing
about Nigerian culture or like Nigerian American culture--
- I just think we the flyest.
We have the flyest weddings.
We got the flyest tribal gear,
we got the most talented athletes.
Everybody should feel like that about their culture
and I think the world is finally starting to get hip,
like with the emergence of Afrobeat.
- The Afrobeat, speak about that.
- You have King Sonny, we have Fela,
but now it's like commercial.
They've evolved a lot in Nigeria as far as like, you know,
the perception of Nigeria is just like too trapped out,
you know what I'm saying?
It's got its good and its bad.
- But it's got tourism poppin' now,
there's music happening, - It's beautiful.
- There's a whole scene.
- It's beautiful. - And it's beautiful.
- And the food.
- Why you not planning your next trip to Nigeria right now?
- Let me take you to Nigeria.
Let Wale take you and your family
and your loved ones to Nigeria.
- Hey, you've heard it here folks.
Plan your next trip to Nigeria.
(ding)
- So this dish right here, we're not gonna touch,
we're just gonna get the aesthetic all,
because I know what it tastes like.
- Okay, this is Ogbono Soup with Amala.
- It's an abomination.
(upbeat hip-hop music)
My mother made it one day, hated it, never tried it again.
- Boom, but like what if you taste it one day--
- It's never gonna happen.
- [Andrew] Aw, snap. - (stammering) Nope.
- You just steadfast.
Goodbye. - Bye, Amala.
Good to see you again, enjoy.
I think there's okra in this joint I think.
Okra, Amala, get that away.
It's an abomination, I don't like it.
- I don't mind it that much.
- Cool, cool.
- You heard it here folks,
don't you ever serve this to Wale.
- Ever. - Not never.
- Do better, love yourself.
- Cool, so what's the like most
like exotic thing you've ever had?
Like I've had like escargot or like frog legs.
- Okay, all right.
- You know, I've tried things.
How 'bout you?
- Sushi, exotic sushi that be looking like toys,
you know what I'm sayin'?
Like them little crazy dudes, I had those before.
I felt like I was doing something big at that time.
- Okay. (laughs)
What's the most expensive thing you've ever eaten.
- Crustaceans. - Crustaceans?
- Crustaceans, fool, we going tonight.
- [Andrew] We couldn't let Wale leave without talking
about Mambo Sauce, a DC staple
that makes everything taste better.
- That chicken naked.
That joint is naked.
If I was anything another than African,
they would say I'm crazy,
but an African definitely made these.
- [Andrew] You know this for certain?
- Because it needs to be, they need to throw this
into the Ogbono soup and let it sit there
like this joint is the most naked chicken.
Brother Nature be like, "Yo, baby chicken."
- "Baby chicken!" - "You're alive still."
- "Come hang out with my deer."
- This is totally not how you 'posed to eat it,
but you know this chicken is naked.
Just go crazy, I guess, like this.
- There it is, this is the Mambo Sauce.
- Sociopath! - Tell me a little bit
about Mambo sauce. (exclaiming)
- You can put it on anything, burger, chicken,
some people like to drizzle it on they rice.
Right now, I'm eating a sponge and it taste all right,
because it's covered in Mambo Sauce.
- You could sprinkle Mambo Sauce on a sponge--
- I'm eating a brick.
- And it would taste as good as this chicken is.
- I think I chipped a tooth.
- I'm really like having a thing right here.
- Mambo Sauce should run for president.
It got the same complexion as the current president.
- Tell me a little bit about growing up in Washington DC.
- Damn, you know, I don't wanna get all deep on you.
- [Andrew] No, you don't have to.
- I mean, Mambo Sauce is taking me there,
know what I'm saying?
It was weird 'cause, you know, when you were a kid,
you wouldn't want to fit in.
And it's like, mom, Nigerian.
Mother pick me up from school with the whole tribal,
native gear, everybody making fun, you know.
It was a different experience back then being Nigerian.
A lotta people didn't see the beauty in the culture.
Then we moved to Maryland and we had to live
in a super low-income joint and kids can be mean.
I will say, growing up in DC, Maryland,
and then going to two HBCUs and one super, duper,
I don't know what you call the white schools,
but I guess schools. (laughing)
- Private, liberal arts.
- Yeah and it just gave me a good balance
of like the world that I live in right now.
- You're outspoken about gentrification in DC,
why is it important to maintain culture
in those neighborhoods, like it's happening in Brooklyn too.
- 'Cause if we don't preserve the culture,
the world will just be one flat, plain,
everybody will be wearing the same thing,
doing the same thing, there'll be monotony.
You have to have different colors on your palette.
The world needs juxtaposition.
- That's beautifully said. - I'm a rapper.
- I mean, you're an artist.
Four dishes and a chicken wing Mambo Sauce franken-dish.
I had a great time talking to you, Wale.
- Thank you.
- Check out this man's--
- My palette is pleased.
- That's right, we pleased his palette here on Chew It Up.
I'm Andrew Santiago, make sure to check out
those singles right now,
BMG, On Chill. - On Chill, BMG, everything.
The album will be out shortly, thank you for supporting.
Follow me on Instagram, BlackPlanet, Facebook, and iTunes.
- You heard it here, Chew It Up, see you next time.
- Hey. (upbeat music)