#111: What happened when Wave Chapelle met Dave Chappelle?
The Milwaukee rapper talks about meeting his infamous celebrity namesake and more.
Among the most time-honored of naming conventions is the twist on a celebrity’s name. You can combine two into one (Michael Cera Palin), play with how the name sounds (Anti-Difranco, Mashd N Kutcher), get more conceptual (Princess Die Die Die & The Dody Flayed’s), go full Wheel of Fortune Before & After (Tom Cruise Control, Harrison Ford Escort), tie it to a pop-culture reference (Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head), or make a simple thematic tweak (Sob Dylan).
Milwaukee rapper Wave Chapelle chose the last route. He was inspired, in a roundabout way, by someone who made the same choice: rapper Max B, a.k.a. Wavy Crockett. He popularized the slang “wavy” in the ’00s, when a young Wave Chapelle was rapping under the name Astro. As he told Fake Shore Drive back in 2016:
“I pretty much got my name from just kicking it in the studio with the homies. We would always come up with these names like ‘Trill Cosby’ or ‘Xanny Glover’ and whatnot. This was around the time I got hip to the ‘Wavy’ term. I was using it a lot in my raps, and I said this crazy line where I ended up calling myself Wave Chapelle.”
You may remember that quote from BNB #102, which is the first time I wrote about Wave Chapelle. That also marked the beginning of my copyediting agony, because Dave Chappelle has two Ps and Wave Chapelle has one, for legal cover.
With the release of his great new EP, The B&W Pack—the 12th in a series of color-coded EPs with “pack” in the name—I decided it was time to check in with Wave about his namesake, why he nearly walked away from music, and why Drake is a great name for a performer.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity blah blah blah.
Band Name Bureau: You were Astro before you were Wave Chapelle. Where did that name come from?
Wave Chapelle: I started off in high school. I was in a rap group called B*right. My rap name was Astro, kind of play off of the anime character Astro Boy. I had this really weird haircut that was angled, kind of like his. Once I moved to Memphis for college—I went to University of Memphis—that’s when I transitioned from Astro to Wave Chapelle officially.
BNB: When was that?
WC: I’d say probably 2014.
BNB: So that was when Dave Chappelle was performing, but he hadn’t fully come back.
WC: Yeah, [Chappelle’s Show] had ended, and then he kind of went off the grid for a little bit. But I vividly remember… I was staying with my older cousin. My older cousin was maybe like 18, 19 at the time. They had an apartment, and I was living with them at 16. We didn’t have no cable, but we had a PlayStation 2 and an Xbox, and I had these Dave Chappelle DVDs. So even though the show wasn’t on TV anymore, I would binge-watch these DVDs all the time.
BNB: How did it become your stage name?
WC: My style—like style of dress, style of rap—was very East Coast-driven. Some people even thought I was from New York, just because of the style of rap, you know what I mean? So people would be like, “Yo, he’s wavy.” “You wavy, bro.” Being wavy was always a thing. Even when I was Astro, I would [have an] alias. I would go as Wave—that just be a nickname.
When I officially decided to turn it into a rap name, I was going to school for marketing. I’m like, “Man, it’s gotta be catchy. It’s gotta be something more than Wave.” ’Cause there’s so many people that use “wave” and things like that. So I was like, “Wave…Dave…Chappelle.” It was just a light-bulb moment. “Maybe I should add ‘Chapelle’ to the end of this and just make it a thing.” It proved to work in that way, you know what I mean? When people hear it, whether you hate it or you love it, it’s like a fishing hook. It just grabs you.
BNB: Do you feel like the wave influence is still strong in the music you’re making now?
WC: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think I’m a lot more mature, but I’m also smarter. Everything that I was doing earlier on is just amplified now, because I’ve got way more experience. I’m way more skilled as a rapper. I’m way more, I guess, witty. I’m witty with everything that I do. When I started being Wave Chapelle, I was clever then, but now everything is kind of like times 10.
BNB: Have you heard from Dave Chappelle’s people at all?
WC: Yeah, man, two times, actually. In 2016, I met him directly. It was at a comedy show in New York. My manager at the time knew his people, right? We buy tickets, we go to the show, but then afterwards, my manager’s like, “Yo, come with me to the back. We going to try to meet him.” Man, sure enough, I went to the back, and his manager walked us in. He’s sitting there, talking with his people. And I’m nervous, right? I’m super, super, super nervous, ’cause I’m pretty much just using his name, basically.
I meet him, and as soon as I try to shake his hand, he goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Rap. Let me hear something.” Super-raspy voice. He got the cigarette going. I’m like, “Man, it’s an honor to meet you,” you know what I mean? He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Rap. Rap right now!” I’m just, like, thinking the best verse I can memorize. I rap it for him. He’s like, “You all right, man. You nice, man.” He kind of gave me the stamp of approval, like, “anything you need, you good.”
Then fast forward to the beginning of this year. I did a show with Talib Kweli, which is one of his really good friends. During soundcheck I meet Talib. He’s like, “Yo, you Wave Chapelle?” I was like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “Yo, what’s funny is I just texted Dave, ‘Yo, you’ll never believe I’m performing with this kid who has a name similar to yours.’” And Dave texted—he showed me the text—he’s like, “Yo, I know who that is!” And I was like, “Yo, that’s fire!” [Laughs.]
BNB: What an awkward position to be in, to have him be like, “Oh yeah, now drop something for me.”
WC: Yeah, man, that is not how I thought it was gonna go. When you meet your idols and people you look up to, you wanna give them they flowers. So I had this whole spiel in my mind that I was ready to give him.
BNB: What song did you do?
WC: I think I did two verses from a song called “Soul Food & Hennessy.” It remind you of some College Dropout type of vibe. But it was fire, though! I got some good bars in there. One of the first raps that I wrote that was really, really good. I told myself when I wrote this song, “Nah, I can rap at a high level.”
BNB: You know he loves a College Dropout vibe because you watched the DVDs. Kanye’s first TV appearance was on Chappelle’s Show.
WC: Yeah, exactly. That’s why the Dave Chappelle series means so much to me, because that was really my introduction to seeing hip-hop culture. All the people that Dave was bringing on was these really, really good rappers. I was watching that stuff in like fourth, fifth grade. [Laughs.]
BNB: How has it been having Wave Chapelle as a name since you first met him in 2016? He’s not a dude who’s without controversy these days. Do you get any blowback?
WC: Nah, never, man. Never. I got people that think it’s cheesy. But see, my thing is it’s gonna make you feel something, you know what I mean? Either you’re gonna be like, “Ah, that’s clever,” or you’re gonna like, “Ah, that’s cheesy,” but you gonna react. So I think that’s the main thing. I don’t think anybody ever looks too deep into it, ’cause at the end of the day, I’m not Dave, so even if you got a gripe with him, there’s nothing you can really say to me. I’m whole ’nother person. I like to play when I do shows and stuff. I’m like, “Wave Chapelle like Dave Chappelle. Shoutout to my uncle.” People be like, “Oh my God, is that really your uncle?” [Laughs.]
BNB: What about you personally? Has your feeling toward the name changed at all?
WC: Nah, not necessarily. Outside of the name, I do think that I’m a totally different person. My ideals and things of that nature are just very different. The thing that connects us is the Chapelle part, right?
When I introduce myself to people, I’m like, “What’s up? I’m Wave,” so I’m Wave at the end of the day. But the Chapelle part is just the marketing part of it. I’m pretty able to separate myself from whatever controversy is going on, you know what I mean? He’s a world-famous comedian. I’m sure that doesn’t come without any controversy.
“I’m Wave at the end of the day. But the Chapelle part is just the marketing part of it. I’m pretty able to separate myself from whatever controversy is going on.”
BNB: Yeah, and it’s hard to gauge how many people actually care. For some people, he’s persona non grata. But his specials are some of the most-watched things on Netflix.
WC: My other thing too is I’m just a creative at the end of the day. Whether it’s comedy, whether it’s painting, whether it’s acting, all these things. I’m always sensitive to the creative because we are in a space that a lot of things are policed, and a lot of things are watched with a magnifying glass. We still need to be allowed to create and be open to be creative as possible.
So somebody like Dave Chappelle, we can’t really police what he’s gonna say on stage, ’cause this is part of his performance, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, painters can paint however they want.
BNB: Do you feel like the process of coming up with a name as a hip-hop artist is different from other genres of music?
WC: Nah. I mean, it shouldn’t be. I don’t think it should. I think when it comes to coming up with a name for music recording artists in general, I think the aim should be the same thing. It’s like the title to a book. Whatever you name yourself, you’re supposed to bring people in. You want it to grab people. Whether you’re going with your real name or you’re going with a moniker, I think it all has to just grab somebody.
Like, Drake is a great name to me because it’s normal, right? It’s normal, so it feels relatable. But then the more he does, the name builds up, right? It’s Drake, right? But then you got somebody like the Clipse. Sounds good, right? It just grabs you.
I think the process is the same, though, even with rock bands. Green Day, Blink-182, Paramore. I don’t think it varies between genre. I think it just depends on what your aim is as an artist. Which, in my opinion, I feel like you want to grab people out the gate, you know what I mean? Even if they don’t know who you are, when you hear this name, it should grab you.
BNB: I’ll say with hip-hop, you see less silliness in names. That’s not scientific at all, just anecdotal. [Laughs.]
WC: No, I feel that, though. That might be a thing. But Chance the Rapper, that’s kind of funny to me. That to me is witty, kind of tongue-in-cheek a little bit, because of course he’s here to rap—he’s the rapper. Or even Wu-Tang. Don’t get me wrong, like Wu-Tang is obviously legendary now, but like when I first heard Wu-Tang, I’m like, “What is that?”
BNB: To shift gears a little bit, it feels like with The B&W Pack and all the Pack EPs your songs have been trending shorter in length. Is that organic or intentional?
WC: Yeah, so there’s a little bit of both. I think the spirit of it is to bottle up the creativity and be efficient with it. Sometimes an idea could be good, but not necessarily long. Our purpose with the EPs is to serve it to you. Not necessarily saying it’s fast food, ’cause it’s a good cooked meal. [Laughs.] But we never want to overcook. So if the idea is fresh, let’s get it. If I got this first verse, the second verse, we got the beat, let’s cook it, and then let’s move.
Because in the spirit of the EPs, anything under my catalog that has “pack” on the side of it, we are in this spirit of just cooking, cooking, cooking and then moving onto the next thing. Whereas my albums, I’ll sit for months. I’ll thoroughly write these songs and put a lot more thought into it and meaning and nuance, and then we go in on the post-production.
It’s just two different mentalities, you know what I mean? So with the Packs, I do find that some of the songs might be a little bit shorter, whether it’s one long verse, two short verses, whatever. It’s almost like attack mode, kind of rapid. It’s an exercise that we like to do to just stay consistent and just cook on a hot plate.
BNB: You’re talking about you and Menebeats?
WC: Yeah, so when I say “we,” I mean me, Menebeats, and Dacota G. Menebeats is the producer and sometimes we’ll have Dee Miinor in there. He collaborates with us a lot. Sometimes we have co-production, stuff like that, and then Dacota G is the engineer. He handles all the engineering and making it sound crispy and even putting in ideas here and there. All three of us collectively are the brain trust of my career for the past five years.
BNB: You’ve been working with them for a while now.
WC: Yeah, and I always gotta shout them out, man. They are pretty much responsible for keeping me in this thing, man. 2020 was rough for me. I really contemplated just stepping away from music and going in, like, a mentor role, just because I had been doing it for so long. I was just like, “Man, okay, let me find what the next avenue is.” But I moved to Atlanta, I met Dacota and Menebeats, and they were just like, “Nah, bro, you just too talented. Let’s work together.” They were like, “Give us just this year. Let’s do something, and we’ll see where it goes.” The project that we dropped was Waves Don’t Die, which was just so very symbolic. We created that, and that just resparked everything in me.
BNB: How long were you in Atlanta?
WC: I was in Atlanta for three years, up to 2023.
BNB: You were in Memphis for college and Atlanta for a few years. Did living in the South rub off on your sound?
WC: Not really. I think the reason people Down South love me so much is because I was so different. I was around all these people down South, but I sounded like I was from elsewhere, you know what I mean? I think that’s what helps me being from Milwaukee too. I don’t necessarily do the Milwaukee sound. A lot of people always describe my sound as like an East Coast vibe, like early 2000s. I think that sound is what makes me stand out wherever I’m at.
BNB: The Milwaukee sound, it’s more bass-heavy?
WC: The signature sound here I like to credit to this artist named Munch Lauren. When I was in high school, he would go to these house parties and he would produce on his own MacBook. All super, super bass-heavy, and then he’d add these claps. The claps became the signature because the culture in Milwaukee is to dance, right? Like, everybody loves to dance. The dances, they go to these uptempo beats. When the claps come in, whether it’s the girls, they dancing, they twerking or whatever, or the guys, they’re doing this dance called banging, and they’re doing all these different dances. The dances go to the music. And Munch Lauren kind of created the soundtrack to what these dances would be.
So that’s the Milwaukee sound. That’s the culture. If you come here, you go to the North Side, you go to the East Side, you go to these parties, or you go to the club and you hear somebody local, it’s gonna sound just like that. That’s not my style of music. I respect it and I love it to death. I love the Milwaukee music, but I think that I just paint with a different brush.
BNB: Is there a benefit of being in Milwaukee, away from the attention that Chicago attracts?
WC: I like to say that Chicago is the big building standing in front of us. Like when people come to the Midwest, they stop in Chicago. But if you are somebody that just decides to go a little bit further, you find this diamond in the rough, you know what I mean? One of the biggest advantages to being here is just being unique, being able to stand out, ’cause we have such a unique culture.
When people experience it for the first time, they fall in love with it. Which is why I think now Milwaukee is starting to blow up so much, whether it’s going viral on TikTok or you name it. I think once you get a taste of it, people just want more because it’s so different.
I think that is one of our biggest advantages. We’re unlike any place, whether it’s Chicago or any of the big cities. Milwaukee just has such a prominent culture that no one has ever had a taste of. It’s like finding a new restaurant for the first time. You’re just like, “Man, I love this. I gotta keep coming back.” I think in mainstream music, they’re finally getting a taste of it, and now it’s making Milwaukee flourish at a high level.
BNB: What drew you back from Atlanta?
WC: Well, if I’m being honest, my son being born is what brought me back completely. Me and his mother have been friends for a long time. I was living in Atlanta, and she just really wanted to raise him around a bunch of family. Me being born here, all my family is here, and so when we had that talk where she said, “I think I want him to be in Milwaukee,” I had to respect it. I’m obviously wherever he’s at. I’m gonna be with my son. I packed up. I didn’t even hesitate. I left my apartment, said, “I’ll figure it out later,” and I moved back here.
But one thing I promised myself when I moved back here to Milwaukee, I told myself that I would have to function at a high level. It’s a little easier doing music in places that are big cities, like Atlanta and New York. So, coming back here, I made a pact with myself that I have to function at a high level. If I’m gonna move back, there’s no slacking at all. It just ended up being one of the best decisions that I made, coming back here.
POST-SCRIPTS
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Rap. Rap right now!” LOL.
Next month: Band Name Bureau’s annual thanks list, plus another interview. Probably!