Skin Color Controversy Surrounds Wale’s “Pretty Girls” Video

Wale's "Pretty Girls" video has been a long time coming, but somehow I don't think this is how Wale pictured the release going. While on the surface "Pretty Girls" is a fun but relatively unremarkable video, it's sparked a raging controversy over the absence of dark skinned women. Oops.



The Refined Take:

1) Here, I'll breakdown the controversy surrounding this video via an imaginary conversation between Wale and some of his fans:

Fans: Why aren't there any dark-skinned girls in the video?
Wale: What do you want me to do about it? No dark skin girls showed up to the casting call.
Fans: But that's exactly the problem. Dark skinned women are consistently shut out, and we were hoping you'd make the extra effort to make sure they were represented. We expected better from someone who had a song called "Shades" on his album.
Wale: I'm not an activist, I'm an artist.

There. That about sums it up.

2) Wait, I thought Gucci Mane was on this song? Oh, that's right, he's in jail. Come on people, is it that hard to follow the terms of your parole? Look at the good times you miss out on.

3) Is it just me or does that first girl look a little cougar-ish? She looks damn good, I'm just saying that if she was dating Ashton Kutcher I wouldn't be surprised.

4) As part of my ongoing sports loyalty campaign, I'd like to give it up to Wale for rocking an Orioles hat in the video, the appropriate choice for a DMV native (it gets tricky with the Nationals, but any DMV resident can rep the Orioles with pride). Well done Wale.

5) Yo, I had to watch it a few times to be sure, but did y'all catch the Cameo from Tristan Wilds, better know as Micharl from "The Wire". F*k yeah. It's good to know he's doing so well after killing Snoop.

As an added bonus, Wale dropped his video for "Sweetie" in the same package. Enjoy.