Album Review: Lil Wayne – Tha Carter IV

After many delays and postponed release dates for Tha CarterIV, die-hard Weezy fans rejoiced as a leak hit the interwebs late last night. It immediately began trending on Twitter and before anyone points out, I’m not supporting illegal piracy of music because I’m buying it on Monday morning, but I just had to hear it when I found a link!

Track one, intro. You start to wonder if this will be another generic gangsta rap album about the hoes and bitches and then you remember….it’s Lil Wayne. You gotta look so much deeper than just the lyrics! His rhyming pattern, use of metaphors, his unique voice and intelligence are the factors that have made this guy so successful. Not only has he founded the record label Young Money Cash Money Business Records (YMCMB) but he’s done it without producing pop songs for the radio (they’re usually too explicit)! After hearing Weezy’s Sorry 4 The Wait mixtape with a range of covers including Marvin’s Room, Adele’s Rolling In The Deep, the hype was already building for this monumental album. Peep the mixtape here.

So after listening to the intro, my jaw had already dropped wide open with awe of what I was listening to.

I won’t go into every track in huge details, you gotta hear the album yourself, and I don’t want to ruin the best lyrics either. Tracks two and three: Blunt Blowin’ and Megaman do well to continue the style that Wayne has crafted of bars rolling one after another, a series of punch lines if you will.

6Foot 7Foot

This killer track blew up the urban club scene leaving the walls shaking with a thunderous bassline and rapid fire lyrics from Weezy and young YMCMB rapper Corey Gunz. As the first single off the album, the track is the first single Lil Wayne has recorded since his release from prison back in November 2010. I guess Weezy must’ve had a moment of enlightenment in the joint because when he came out and produced this track, his music was on a whole other level.

Mack Maine, president of Young Money and fellow labelmate, called it “A Milli on steroids.” Source: Wiki

She Will

After two leaked “behind the scenes” clips, this hype on this track was absolutely massive and did not disappoint at all!  Making the whole album worth the wait, hip-hop fans all over the world having been repeating the addictive lyrics:

“I like my girl thick, not just kinda fine, eat her til she cry, call that wine and dine”

I could post so many more lyrics to this song but the best way to describe it is to listen yourself. The Young Money protegé: Heartbreak Drake seals this tune with a heartfelt chorus that racked up 186 plays on my iTunes account! Rick Ross jumped on the remix for a chance to work with the “I’m On One” crew without DJ Khaled but that version didn’t make the album cut. Undoubtedly the best track on the album

John

The second single from Tha Carter IV was quite disappointing with the stereotypical gangsta attitude of money, women, expensive cars and boats and not to forget a video of Rick Ross in a wheelchair with spinners. Don’t ask.

So Special

Teaming up with one of my favourite voices in R&B is Weezy featuring John Legend who is seriously underated as an artist. He’s a master of the keys, had a brilliant soulful voice and a brilliant producer. By this point in the album you really have to understand what Lil Wayne is about, the metaphors, parrallel meanings, wordplay and intelligence all point towards Weezy being one of the most crucial influences of modern day hip-hop. This is the exact track that makes the overlap between hip-hop and R&B so hard to distinguish. Either way a fantastic track.

How To Love

Rapper turned skater Lil Wayne is known for his exuberant tattoos, dress sense and uniqueness but now he drops an acoustic guitar into the mix. When Asad4Real first played me the audio to this track I couldn’t stand it which surprised me for a Weezy track, but with the video dropping today yesterday I admit I was wrong. The track is amazing, with a video depicting a troubled childhood, which led her to stripping, prostitution, and eventually contracting HIV. Weezy plays narrator to her struggles, while showing what could have been if she had not been dealt such a bad hand.

This track definitely goes to show Wayne can do more than rap, even with his crazy voice he can actually do a decent job at singing! Taking influence from skatboarding , piercings and tattoos and evidently real world issues, this track is extremely addictive.

It’s Good

This track was described as a Jay-Z diss over the interwebs but I disagree completely, it’s a twist done by the media to create controversy sighting lyrics from H.A.M off Watch The Throne.  The stinging lines appear on the track  featuring artists Jadakiss and Drake.

“Talkin’ about baby money, I got your baby money, kidnap your bitch, get that how much you love your lady money/ I know you fake ni**a, press your brakes ni**a/ I’ll take you out, that’s a date, ni**a,” raps the Young Money chief.

The verse is believed to be his response to Jay’s verse on “H•A•M,” where he reportedly took shots at Birdman.

“I’m like really, half a billi, ni**a really you got baby money/ Keep it real with ni**as, ni**as ain’t got my lady money,” Jay-Z

Source: RapUp

Bonus Track: Mirror

I thought this combination would have been impossible! If someone told me, I would have laughed in their face but actually it’s a great side to Bruno Mars that hasn’t been shown in the charts. With brilliant vocals from Bruno and Wayne wraps up the album with some profound thoughts and a memoir to Michael Jackson:

“And no message could have been any clearer, so I’m starting with the man in the mirror,”

All in all, my mind got blown away by this album. After a year of delays it’s finally here and I’m tempted to say it’s better than I expected. I’ve listened to it five times through now and still it hasn’t all set in. That’s the thing with great album by great artists, one listen is never enough. You have to appreciate, analyse and break down all their hard work, lyric by lyric, splice the beat up, look at the production and then listen over and over again. Everytime you listen you can hear different sounds and synths, new lyrics a new meaning to the lyrics and soo please don’t judge this by: I don’t like Lil Wayne. Keep a fresh mind, let it sink in and be marvelled at how incredible this album is!

BUY from iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/preorder/tha-carter-iv-deluxe-edition/id459912709

DOWNLOAD: http://www.ilovernbmusic.com/2011/08/24/album-lil-wayne-tha-carter-iv-deluxe-edition/

Rating: ????? (MUST LISTEN)

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