The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” is a classic, widely recognized and is one of our all time favorite songs; classical contemporary at its best. One of the more talented emcee’s to arrive within the last few years, Wale, has collaborated with Colin Munroe for a ‘rewrap’ of the song entitled simply, “Bittersweet”.

When covering a classic the artist has to be so good with his/her own style to match the old OR try to emulate the original to the T without stepping out of line. From what we can hear it seems Wale and Munroe took the latter route. The instrumentation is basically identical with the addition of a few implementations for some hip-hop flavor. Wale’s rhymes are good as usual and with keeping inline with the overall vibe of the song they neither underwhelm or outdo the rest of the song. There are similarities between Munroe’s vocals and The Verve’s lead, Richard Ashcroft, vocals so once again the song is reliving what the original did instead of reinventing it.

It’s a solid album cut from Attention: Defecit which will be in stores November 3, 2009.

Wale – Bittersweet feat. Colin Munroe