I think just by typing that name all backpackers reading through immediately slammed their computers in anger. But hear me out. I too like Nas and Canibus and all the other underground hip-hop artists that get you indie cred.
But I also think Lil’ Wayne gets an unfair amount of hatred because he’s popular (which seems common these days…I’ll refrain from the usual tired hipster cliches/jokes). And I’m not just saying that because we’re from the same city. If you really look beyond his reputation and image, I think he has a fair amount of talent. Here’s ten songs that I think represent that:
1) 3 Peat
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HIB706Tvwo]
2) 6 Foot 7 Foot
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7tOAGY59uQ]
3) Mr. Carter
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3M9HfVFDgY]
4) A Milli
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZFkXi-E9dQ]
5) John
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fumBcKC6RE]
6) Shoot Me Down
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx9fpNSIzA]
7) Dontgetit
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bzYLs-uE0Q]
8) How To Love
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Gf4-eT3w0]
9) Forever
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDuRoPIOBjE]
10) Nightmares of the Bottom
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ag0zzg9Ww]
You will notice these tracks pretty much came from Carters III and IV. I think this when he came into his own not only commercially but artistically as well. Tha Carter III is critically acclaimed. It has a score of around 80 on the holy grail of analytical geekitude, Metacritic. The beats really hook you in and are danceable. Wayne sounds energized and hungry and h also never lets his guests (like Jay-Z) outshine him. I felt Wayne had more direction, more focus on III than IV (he lost something on his latest output…perhaps it was his legal woes). The last track on Carter III, “Dontgetit”, is an interesting piece about Al Sharpton and racial relations that blurs the lines between hip-hop and spoken-word.
As an English major and writer, I can appreciate Lil’ Wayne’s sense of wordplay. He employs a lot of verbal wit. He’s not a storyteller like Eminem or honestly as socially conscious as Common. But he deals more in free verse, surrealistic abstraction. Think of him as a lyrical Salvador Dali. It’s more about the individual parts than the sum. Every line he plays on the varied meanings of words and their implications. It’s like George Carlin where you have to listen to the second line to get the full pun/joke (he relied on this too much with IV but that’s another story). His style of rapping can be epic and, admittedly at times overly boastful, but he stretches it so far it gets to the point of absurdity. He has a lot of left-field ideas and despite his position as part of the current trend of hip-hop that glorifies materialism and self-aggrandizement, he puts more thought into his lyrics than say, someone like 2 Chainz or Soulja Boy. The latter two may repeat the same line thirty times in a song but Wayne always has fresh, unique verses and a style unlike anyone else in hip-hop. Love him or hate him you can’t deny he doesn’t bite other people’s style.
So yeah, that was my defense of Lil’ Wayne. And I tried to go beyond “omg lil wayne is a beast fuck yall haterz he the best in da game right now”. Don’t let his fanbase bring you down. I’ll be the first to say they are dumb but I think overall Wayne deserves his success. Birdman saw something in him in the ghettos of New Orleans and there’s no looking back now. Do your worst with your rebuttals.
3 comments
Greg says:
Dec 30, 2012
Well, since someone has to be the hatin’ ass mu’fucka (also known as the “ham’f”), I’ll go ahead and bite. My issue with Wayne isn’t the nonexistent subject matter, or the lack of consistency, or the increasingly strained punchlines about how he gets green like Al Gore on a cheeba cloud. My issue is that for all his lyrical quirks and eccentricities, Wayne’s music has no personality. He cannibalizes whatever’s hip and trendy in the pop music landscape while adding nothing substantial himself. Take “Tha Carter III” – it had a T-Pain song (“Got Money”), a Just Blaze-lite song (“Mr. Carter”), a Kanye song (“Comfortable”), an R&B hybrid (“Lollipop”), a trap song (“A Mili”), a Soulja Boy song (“Phone Home”). Hell, “Dontgetit” flipped the same Nina Simone sample that Devo Springsteen and Common used the previous year for “Misunderstood.” It’s nothing but mediocre punchlines and stale trending; it’s why “Tha Carter III” sounds extremely dated not even a half-decade later. Even guys like Waka Flame, Soulja Boy and Lil B bring a distinct energy to their music. It’s how they’ve managed to sustain careers after the initial shock of their viral hits wore off. Wayne doesn’t offer anything distinctive. In an effort to be versatile and popular, he’s pissed away any semblance of a musical identity. He taught Nicki well.
Maybe that’s not entirely fair. I do have a skewed sense of respect for the man, since he put in his time to get where he’s at now. He didn’t ride the success of a fluke hit, or arrive on the coattails of a famous benefactor (because people would listen to Big Sean if he wasn’t approved by Kanye. No, really). And even if you’re going to cannibalize the pop music landscape, doing it for this long isn’t easy to pull off, not without people wising up or losing interest. Having said that, I remember when “Da Drought 3” started making rounds and people were raving about all the progress he’d made since his Cash Money days and how he was on the verge of something massive; when music writers were dedicating small treatises to that goofy “Best Rapper Alive” hoopla. Part of the excitement was guessing where he’d go next. Except, he didn’t go anywhere. He dropped an okay pop rap album, then a shitty rap-rock album, then a couple of nondescript mixtapes, then another okay pop rap album (which was forty percent less okay than the previous one). Same shit, diminishing returns.
Big Money says:
Dec 30, 2012
I’d agree with you on most, if not all, counts, if I was just a bit more familiar with his music. But I guess it comes back to what you said about his music having no personality. I’ve heard more than my share of Lil Wayne songs, I guess. I just don’t fuckin’ remember any of them.
'Face Time: Lil Wayne featuring Babyface, "Comfortable" | Popdose says:
Feb 17, 2013
[…] I dislike Lil Wayne immensely. That said, I bought Tha Carter III out of curiosity, and I can honestly say that the […]