He reunites with Mannie Fresh on the riotously fun throwback “Start This Shit Off Right,” accompanied by Young Money’s resident lovable goofball Mack Maine and a heavenly hook from the queen of radio’s yesteryear, Ashanti. The record is never more electric than when Wayne engages with his past, victoriously returning to lanes he’s conquered instead of fixating on all the newer ones he’ll never own. On the more of-the-moment end of the spectrum, there’s “Don’t Cry,” an XXXTentacion feature that kicks off the album on a misleading, miserablist note, and “Let It Fly,” an undistinguished foray into Travis Scott’s boutique trap.īut unlike 2011’s relentlessly trend-chasing Tha Carter IV, on Carter V, Wayne finally gives himself permission to fall behind the times. Neither Wayne nor Kendrick let the song’s high concept get in the way of unbridled, ferocious rapping. Nicki Minaj gives the most radiant R&B performance of her career on “Dark Side of the Moon,” and Kendrick Lamar brings Nicolas Cage-levels of insanity to his “ Stan”-inspired spotlight turn on “Mona Lisa,” breaking out a dozen different voices as he dramatizes the breakdown of jealous boyfriend driven to the edge by his partner’s obsession with Weezy. That could be a recipe for whiplash, but most of this material is woven together so seamlessly that its provenance is never a distraction.
Some of these tracks date back years, while others were reportedly finished just weeks ago. “Blunt big, big as Mama June off the diet plan/Smokin’ science lab/I should have a tattoo that say, ‘I’m not like my dad,’” he raps over a nervy Zaytoven beat on “Problems.” And even his lamer quips pay off in unexpected, sometimes emotional ways. He dials back his most obnoxious tics: the overbearing Auto-Tune the incessant dick jokes that awful, forced cackle that grated exponentially more with every tired crack. But more than any release since 2009’s No Ceilings, Carter V captures Wayne how we want to remember him: openhearted, word-drunk, and exhilarated by the possibilities of his own voice. It’s hard for that kind of Christopher Robin imagination to survive this deep into adulthood. Wayne is no longer the lunatic trailblazer of his ’00s mixtape run, a rapper who in a just a couple bars could summon a purplish reality where fish flew through the skies and pigeons swam in the ocean. There’s a degree of quality control on Carter V that nobody could have expected from a 2018 Lil Wayne record, let alone a nearly 90-minute one. It’s hard to imagine the rapper who’d released the dreadful I Am Not a Human Being II just a few months prior could have crafted an album this tactful and heartfelt.
The two reconciled this year, but the hurt and betrayal are harrowingly documented on 2015’s Sorry 4 The Wait II, the most impassioned of Wayne’s otherwise lifeless 2010s mixtapes.ĭespite the toll those wilderness years took on him, it may have been for the best that Tha Carter V was delayed so long. Then, for reasons that still aren’t completely clear, his mentor and father figure Birdman turned on him, refusing to release the album and all but holding his career hostage amid bitter contractual disputes. Overexposed and uninspired, he’d become so resigned to his dwindling relevance after years of repeating the same jokes that he’d even stopped calling himself the greatest rapper alive. Lil Wayne was already mired in a brutal slump when the bottom fell out.
0 kommentar(er)
