yinyang205's Full Review: Tha Carter II [PA] by Lil Wayne
In the past year and a half, Lil Wayne has compared himself to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Rolling Stone Magazine proclaimed him the greatest rapper of his generation. Vibe Magazine even went so far as to compare him to Tupac, Jimi Hendrix, and The Notorious B.I.G.
My point in all of this? To encapsulate the hype and anticipation surrounding the final installment of Tha Carter series: Tha Carter III. Needless to say, Wayne’s newest fans have high expectations for him and his album; message boards all over the Internet were filled with comments of it being classic, the album that would solidify his chokehold on the rap industry. Tracks were leaked, mixtape DJs were dissed, and eventually, Wayne’s full album was leaked over a week before it was due to hit shelves nationwide. However, it’s still been predicted to sell over 850,000 units in its first week. The question is, are the sales commensurate with the quality of the album?
Track Listing and Ratings:
Three Peat (4 Stars)
Mr. Carter Feat. Jay-Z (5 Stars)
A Milli (3 1/2 Stars)
Got Money Feat. T-Pain (2 1/2 Stars)
Comfortable Ft. Babyface (4 1/2 Stars)
Dr. Carter (5 Stars)
Phone Home (3 Stars)
Tie My Hands Feat. Robin Thicke (5 Stars)
Mrs. Officer Feat. Bobby Valentine (3 1/2 Stars)
Let The Beat Build (3 Stars)
Shoot Me Down (4 1/2 Stars)
Lollipop Feat. Static Major (4 Stars)
La La Feat. Busta Rhymes and Brisco (1 Star)
Playin’ With Fire (3 1/2 Stars)
You Ain’t Got Nothin’ Feat. Juelz Santana and Fabolous (2 Stars)
DontGetIt (5 Stars)
Lil Wayne has been toeing the line between genius and absurd for a while now; when done correctly, it has produced such songs as “I Feel Like Dying” and “Sportscenter.” When the formula goes awry, you get something like his verse on “Barry Bonds,” which sounds like he was just BSing in the booth on that particular day. This is reflected throughout his new album as well. The second single, “A Milli,” captures this dilemma perfectly; backed by a simplistic Bangladesh beat (comprised of bass, drums, and a screwed sample of someone saying “A Milli” over and over), Wayne spits some of the most random lines of his career, but it works more often than not. He uses that croaky voice of his to his advantage, emphasizing some lines while simply spitting through others. The result is a solid, yet also unsatisfying track (kudos to him for leaving that God-awful Cory Gunz verse on the cutting room floor though). From here, the results are all over the place, with the better tracks being those where Wayne’s train of thought is at least somewhat coherent. “Lollipop,” the album’s first single, works well not only because of the spacey sounds courtesy of Jim Jonsin, but because Wayne successfully jacks T-Pain’s auto tuner style wholesale, flipping it better than the Florida native. The track is light-hearted, and while the subject matter isn’t exactly creative, Wayne makes it both fresh and enjoyable. Other songs, however, do not fare as well; take “Let the Beat Build,” for instance, which is hampered both by a more inconsistent Wayne and a lackluster Kanye West beat. Sounding more like a holdover from his College Dropout days than the recent masterpieces he created throughout “Graduation,” the repetitive soul sample starts to grate on the listener’s nerves after only a few seconds. As for Mr. Carter himself, his newfound style fails him here, as lines like ”Rims big make the car look like its two stories/If I hop out, that'll be suicide, no back seats/Call it paralyzed” fail to connect. His flow is good throughout, and he does an admirable job of switching it up, but it’s not enough to make the song anything more than average. However, the worst offender of these tracks is undoubtedly “La La,” which guest stars Busta Rhymes and Brisco. Everything about this track screams half-baked, from David Banner’s nursery rhyme- themed beat, to all three emcees’ horrible verses. Wayne’s sticks out as the best, but here, that isn’t exactly saying much. And note to Busta: if this is the best you can do, just hang up the mic now and not even bother dropping I’m Blessed. You went from show stealer, to an emcee who sounded better over other people’s sh*t than your own, to…….what, now? If you’re not the game’s best cameo appearance anymore, then what have you get left?
But I digress.
Overall, tracks like these show Wayne as he’s come to be known now: all over the map, spacey, and wildly inconsistent. Unfortunately for him, there’s more bad than good when he adapts this persona.
However, he still shows that he can do more standard tracks, and ironically enough, it’s these that fare the best throughout. The stream of consciousness style never completely goes away, but it gets toned down enough so that Wayne is better to understand. The album’s intro, ׁ Peat,” is a good example of this; after a few filler lines, he gets down to business over Maestro's banger of a beat. His lines work here, and even though he’s kicking the standard brag raps, his delivery gets him through here for a good opener. After this, “Mr. Carter” hits the speakers, and Wayne finds himself opposite hip-hop legend Jay-Z; over a soul-tinged beat with some hard hitting drums, Wayne surprisingly outduels the elder Carter (who actually sounds as though he’s holding back on his verse) with a flurry of some of his best rhymes on the entire album:
”Flyer then Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
I got the flow, I'm tryna see the roof
Didn't wear a bulletproof, so I got shot and you can see the proof
Blind eyes could look at me and see the truth
Wonder if Stevie do? But I'ma leave it to
God, not Beaver, neither you
Cause I'ma murder, why I kill O and even you
Man, I got Summer hatin' on me cause I'm hotter then the Sun
Got Spring hatin' on me cause I ain't never sprung
Winter hatin' on me cause I'm colder than ya'll….”
Wayne continues the streak of good music on “Comfortable,” and he’s joined by Babyface on the hook. Kanye West bounces back from his failure of a beat on “Let the Beat Build,” delivering a beautiful beat backed by strings and drums. The subject matter is simple enough—Wayne spitting to a female and reminding her not to take him for granted—but the execution here is top notch, from Wayne’s lyrics to Face’s job on the hook. Following this is one of the album’s highlights in “Dr. Carter.” Swizz Beatz shows that he can be an excellent producer if he sets his mind to it, turning in a beautifully sampled version of David Axelrod’s “Holy Thursday” for Wayne to spit over. Here, he spits from the perspective of a doctor trying to save three patients—all of whom suffer from different rap-related maladies (bad flow, lack of good concepts, etc.). He loses the first two before successfully saving the third, which turns out to be hip-hop itself. The concept, along with the execution, easily vaults this high on the list of Wayne’s best songs. However, not even “Dr. Carter” stands up to the two biggest highlights of this album: “Tie My Hands” and “DontGetIt.” The former benefits from another well-crafted beat by Kanye West, whose somber beat gives Wayne the perfect backdrop to spit his dirge for a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. Here, he touches on the city, its citizens, along with a scathing indictment of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Blanco for their neglect of the people. With an assist from Robin Thicke, it stands as the most poignant track of the album. The best song, though, is the album’s closer in “DontGetIt,” which flips a sample of Nina Simone’s “Please Don’t Le Me Be Misunderstood” while Weezy takes aim at the double standards of law enforcement’s attitudes toward suburban and ghetto inhabitants, as well as problems in drug sentencing. He also takes shots at Al Sharpton, calling him to the carpet for the race-hustling he’s become maligned for throughout his career:
”Uh, Mr. Al Sharpton, here's why I don't respect you
And nobody like you, hmm hmm, see
You're the type that gets off on gettin on other people, heh hehe
That's not good, no homo
And rather unhuman I should say
I mean, given the fact that humanity, well, good humanity rather
To me, is helpin one another, no matter your color or race
But this guy, and people like him
They'd rather speculate before they informate, if that's a word, heh heh
You know, spect before check, anyway….
Despite the long rant that serves as the end of the song, “DontGetIt” is a track that’s definitely worth a few listens.
However, it’s not all good in Wayne’s world, as some of the standard tracks manage to fall flat. Check out “Mrs. Officer” for instance; it isn’t an outright bad song per se, but it really doesn’t add much to the album. Bobby Valentino does a pretty nice job with the hook, but “Comfortable” works better is the album’s ladies track. And while it’s good to hear from a member of Wayne’s old crew, Sqad Up, Peanut Dizzy doesn’t really impress with his verse here. “Playin With Fire” suffers from the same problem: it’s a decidedly average song. The usually-reliable Streetrunners turn in a melodramatic beat here, leaving Wayne to pick up the slack. His does well with his closing verse—a narrative of a violent confrontation with a loved one’s husband—but by then, it’s too late to salvage a track already mired by a completely unnecessary second verse that sees Wayne almost yelling his lyrics. It’d be a much better track if this verse was left back in the recording studio. And then, of course, there’s the downright bad. For this, look no further than “You Ain’t Got Nothin,” which features Juelz Santana and Fabolous. First off, Alchemist’s beat fails, as he tries way too hard to lend it a hard gangsta feel; instead, it comes off as corny and over-produced. Secondly, what the hell was Wayne thinking when he decided to let Juelz rap on this track? I know they’ve done a few mixtapes together and all, but seriously, the guy can’t rap. At all. How he still has a career is beyond me. Lines like ”Now you can follow the drip/'Cause one shot outta the clip'll jerry curl ya” aren’t clever, Juelz. Thank Camron for giving you a career and just……..go away. Fabolous fares a bit better, but that damn monotone of his just bores me to tears. Wayne easily stands out among the trio, though the fact that he’s the only one who sounds excited to be rapping has a lot to do with that. If all of these tracks were trimmed, the album would’ve been a lot better overall.
As good as this album is, however, Tha Carter III leaves Wayne in the same spot he sat in before it was released: as hip hop’s most loved and hated emcee. Why is this? Because for all of the tracks that could bring in new members on his fanbase (“Dr. Carter,” and “Shoot Me Down” to name two), there is also ample material that serves to drive them away (“A Milli,” “Let the Beat Build,” and “La La”). Give Wayne credit, though: putting out a good album is a difficult task, especially when the world is expecting a classic. Hopefully, this effort is a stepping stone to better work in the future. In the meantime, though, he’ll have to be content with being caught between the greatest tug of war in hip-hop today.
Final Rating: 4 Stars
Standout Tracks: Dr. Carter, Mr. Carter, DontGetIt, Tie My hands
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