(He also racked up arrests on marijuana and gun possession charges, including one after his July 2007 show at the Beacon Theater in New York City. He showed up as a guest on songs by Usher, Lloyd, Chris Brown and Fat Joe he had his first collaboration with Jay-Z on “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” He made an album, “Like Father, Like Son,” with his mentor, Birdman. But between the installments of “Tha Carter,” Lil Wayne has been ubiquitous, embracing saturation rather than scarcity. Major labels and their stars usually equate success with scarcity: completing no more than one album a year (if that), letting anticipation and hype build toward each rare release. Bush,” where he rhymed: “The white people smiling like everything cool/But I know people that died in that pool.” The song came out on “Dedication 2 Gangsta Grillz,” one of the many albums in Lil Wayne’s shadow career as one of the most prolific and widely bootlegged rappers ever. His voice holds unmistakable echoes of New Orleans R&B singing: weathered and frisky, jovial and wary.īetween albums Lil Wayne rapped an even more bitter reaction in a song called “Georgia. His voice rises and falls in a sly, scratchy singsong no wonder he calls himself Weezy that can sound like a cackly old man or a wisecracking kid.
But on the “Carter” series his phrasing has grown looser, trickier and funnier: “Wittier than comedy,” he raps in “La La.” “But I ain’t tellin’ jokes” long pause “apparently.” He drawls to land behind the beat, then casually tumbles through a rush of syllables to end up just where he planned to be.
With the Hot Boys and on his first solo albums, Lil Wayne rattled off strict-meter, rapid-fire rhymes. “They don’t make ‘em like me no more/Matter of fact they never made it like me before,” he raps on a new song, “Phone Home.” Since “Tha Carter,” in 2004 which was his fourth solo album he has let loose his inner anarchist. Not Lil Wayne, who treats hip-hop as equal parts career path and compulsion. He and his listeners never forget that he’s thinking strategically. He releases his albums methodically, with careful buildup and follow-through tours, and he doles out guest appearances as sparingly as papal audiences. His rhymes set a meter and stick with it he chooses a refrain or a topic and works through its variations.
Organization, from his designer suits to his calm demeanor to the tracks themselves. Successor or not, Lil Wayne just doesn’t do things Jay-Z’s way anything but. One of Lil Wayne’s least original efforts, “Lollipop” is just bait, inviting new listeners to notice one of hip-hop’s most free-form rhymers, with a career to match. “Lollipop” is an insinuating electronic concoction, ticking and blipping, with Static Major (who died earlier this year) crooning the chorus and Lil Wayne’s brief bits of rapping turned into a melody by computer tuning. 1 despite (or more likely because of) its single-entendre lyrics. The album’s first single, “Lollipop,” reached No. Songs on “Tha Carter III” use lush, string-laden production by big names like Kanye West, and they often revolve around full-fledged vocal choruses, sung by guests including T-Pain and Babyface. For hip-hop magazines (and, earlier this year, for Billboard), he’s already a cover story. He followed through with his own million-selling solo albums, including “Tha Block Is Hot” in 1999 and “Tha Carter II” in 2005. He got a recording contract when he was 11, and he’s been making albums since he was a teenager, originally with the New Orleans hip-hop group the Hot Boys, which made a platinum record. Without a crossover, he has already gone as far as he can within hip-hop. “Tha Carter III” is Lil Wayne’s determined push into pop. Is that not why we came? And if not, then why bother?” “Young Carter go farther, go further, go harder. Now Jay-Z endorses and anoints him: “I share mike time with my heir,” he raps. Lil Wayne, 25, has been calling himself the “best rapper alive” for years. Jay-Z, 38, has been hip-hop’s top honcho and acclaimed virtuoso for a decade. Since they share a last name and no rapper would let the sonic coincidence go unexploited some kind of identity-defining encounter was probably inevitable. Carter,” a song on Lil Wayne’s long-awaited album “Tha Carter III” (Cash Money/Universal), brings together Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., and Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter.