The “F” in “Weezy F. Baby” must be for “falter,” among other things, because that’s exactly what he’s done in delivering us “Tha Carter IV.”
The easiest thing to say is that it just wasn’t good, no matter how you look at it. Lil Wayne, for whatever reason, didn’t show up on his latest CD, which was released today.
He’s never been the kind of rap revolutionist Kanye West proves himself to be, but he had that quintessential uniqueness to his sound that made him undeniably great. It’s not that he’s lost that either, because in every track he appears in, his flow is smooth, he boosts himself up and he does that little laugh we all love.
To point out specifics, its two main problems revolve around, unfortunately, the two most important facets of a song: the lyrics and the music itself.
Sadly, and this was especially apparent after spending the past few weeks with Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “Watch the Throne,” the production of the music on “Tha Carter IV” was just awful.
Every track had the same tired beats you’ve heard a million times before, and some seemed to be exact copies of other beats he’s blown to in the past. It sounds like the CD was made on GarageBand, and while it’s a wonderful program, a professional record label should want to spend a bit more and make sure it sounds fresh.
The fact is, Lil Tunechi has never written the most creative raps. Sure, he has killer lines, but he hardly ever tells a story with it like the greats did. Tupac, Notorious B.I.G. and Nas come to mind. Of course, no one is like them these days, but at least some other rappers attempt to be.
All Lil Wayne ever does is talk about how much money he has, how much sex he gets, how great Young Money — his record label— is or how he’s such a thug. That’s fine for one or two tracks on a CD. Everyone does that and it’s what we’ve come to expect out of the rap game.
But 15 tracks out of 18? Three of those were bonus tracks too, so that means almost every song he released was about the same damn thing. By themselves, they’re good fun, but listening to them one after the other was mind-numbing, and with no new sound to set them apart, it was all but impossible to tell the difference.
There was one song — a bonus track no less — called “Mirror,” where Weezy actually seemed to bare his soul and talk about something that might have mattered, and Bruno Mars gave it that soulful sound to help. But otherwise, everything else was terrible.
In fact, my favorite song on the album was one in which Lil Wayne didn’t say one word. “Interlude,” the aptly named middle track, was performed by Tech N9ne, and they killed it. Absolutely slaughtered it, especially since they haven’t been nearly as prominent lately. They were a wonderful breather between the rest of Wayne’s monotonous music.
“Tha Carter IV” does have a saving grace: The featured artists are great. There’s everyone from T-Pain, Rick Ross, John Legend, Nas and Drake sharing songs with Lil Wayne and for the most part, they provide all the variety. Without them, it’s hard to imagine what the record would have sounded like.
Weezy needs to come back from this effort on the next one, because this effort was poor. Maybe it’s time to retire “Tha Carter” as an album name, because I’m pretty sure Lil Wayne just killed it … and not in a good way.