Chillin

Wale, (real name Olubowale Victor Akintimehin), is an American rapper from Washington D.C. This was his second solo single release, though he'd previously achieved some chart success in the UK as a guest artist on Australian white soul singer Daniel Merriweather's UK top ten hit single "Change."

This song features Lady Gaga. Many expressed surprise that the D.C. MC was collaborating with the dance-pop princess. Wale told MTV News that his goal was to go against the status quo of what a hip-hop track should sound like. He explained "Diddy, Kanye and Jay are always the first ones to do something, and I like to think of myself as the first person of the new class to kind of step out of the box. It's 2009 now. Jay-Z is doing sold-out arenas with Kelly Clarkson. It's world music now. I want 'Chillin' ' to be a celebration of that."

Wale told MTV News that he'd been trying to get Lady Gaga on board for several months as he felt she embodied the song's party-record feel. He said: "If music was a high school, I feel like I'll be the dude on the football team, and it would be like, 'OK, Gaga's having a party!' And you know all the bad girls are going to be out there."