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Lil Wayne
'The Carter III'
June 10, 2008
Universal/Cash Money
www.cashmoney-records.com
If "The Carter III" serves one purpose, it's to be a perfect anti-drug example for youngsters.
"The Carter III" has been the most anticipated rap release for more than a year. After numerous delays and release date push backs, it has finally arrived.
However, it's not exactly the masterpiece fans and critics were looking for.
Wayne spent the last two years releasing a great deal of new music and moving into the forefront of the rap world, adding his very public addictions to weed and chugging cough syrup to his interesting persona.
The syrup and weed pushed Wayne's already mesmerizing lyrical abilities into another universe as he released a string of amazing-but-spotty mix tapes and guest verses since the 2005 release of "The Carter II." However, it seems the drugs have turned his brain into an unfocused mess.
"The Carter III" could have been spectacular. Including a few of the songs that leaked during the past year that were supposedly on the album and dropping a few that ended up making the final cut could have made the classic album he had somewhere inside him.
The album starts off with three of its strongest tracks, including the pre-album single, "A Milli," which is really the only song on the album that will make you want bigger speakers. It uses a huge drum track and a vocal sample of the song's title as the track's backbone and Wayne bobbing in and out of the beat talking tough and feeding his already enormous ego.
"Mr. Carter" is home to a Just Blaze beat, which is scaled down compared to the rest of his catalog (he is, however, still using chipmunk voice samples on his hooks). Jay-Z appears on the track, giving over hip-hop's reigns to Wayne. "I share mic time with my heir," Jay-Z raps.
"Comfortable," the first Kanye West helmed track, glides in with Babyface on the chorus creating the albums only "for the ladies" slow jam. All four of West's beats lack the bombast and ego that have catapulted him into being one of the world's biggest pop stars. West's "Let the Beat Build," begins like a classic Kanye-soul beat. He loops a Nina Simone sample as the track's hook over Co-Producer Deezle's banging drum sample, Wayne lets loose a flow that isn't nearly as lazy as a good portion of the album. The only problem is that all this beat really does is build, never reaching an interesting climax, just staying content with where it starts off.
"...Nuthin" and "Playing With Fire" are two of the only spots on the entire record where Wayne totally spazzes out on the track by ignoring the beat and going off on tangents. This kind of disregard for a track was one of the elements that made Wayne so engaging during his historic run of killing mix tapes and guest verses over the past two years.
The albums cover features a picture of Wayne as a baby, evoking covers past from the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ready to Die" and Nas' "Illmatic." Wayne obviously feels he's on the same level that those two emcees were at the time of their classic releases. But "The Carter III" just isn't solid all the way through like the two masterpieces he was shooting for.
If Wayne could only put down the syrup and clear up that bombed-out brain of his, he could undoubtedly create a classic from beginning to end - not just a disc peppered with moments of genius.
Luke McCormick can be reached at
536-3311 ext. 275 or
lmccorm2@siu.edu.
