Throughout, Lil Wayne reminds us that he’s a 36-year-old father, not the eternally young horndog who once sung “I just want to fuck every girl in the world” at the height of his fame, or the teenager who chanted “Drop it like it’s hot” over the Triggerman beat. Dre’s “XXXplosive.” There’s a reunion with Mannie Fresh on “Start This Shit Off Right” that has the easy, breezy swagger of a soul stepping party. Still, these nods to contemporary rap and pop, which arrive early in Tha Carter IV, can’t compare to the album’s later moments, though it’s fun to hear him try and rhyme roughshod over the limp electronic pop of “Can’t Be Broken.” He sounds better alongside Snoop Dogg on “Dope Niggaz,” which resurrects the “Bumpy’s Lament” sample made famous on Lil Kim’s “Drugs” and Dr. At the very least, it gives Wayne a chance to drop one of his goofily great punchlines: “They started French kissing so he didn’t see moi.” Travis Scott fades into the background of “Let It Fly.” Kendrick Lamar – who once recorded C4, a mixtape homage to Wayne’s 2008 blockbuster Tha Carter III – joins in “Mona Lisa,” a bizarre, confusing yet ultimately fascinating lyrical fantasy about a woman who cheats on her boyfriend with the man of the hour. The late, controversial emo rapper XXXTENTACION adds a pained squall to “Don’t Cry,” one of the album’s highlights. The other breakout star from his Young Money adventure, Drake, doesn’t make an appearance due to reported scheduling issues. “I am not number one, it’s true/I am 9-27-82,” he says in reference to his birthday on “Don’t Cry.” When one of his Young Money students, Nicki Minaj, croons alongside him on the yearning “Dark Side of the Moon,” it sounds bittersweet. He has rarely sounded as vulnerable as he does here. The Lil Wayne who appears here sounds chastened, questioning his current standing in the rap lexicon. Still, the tumult of years passed undoubtedly left its mark. Lil Wayne is back on center stage, back on top.
It doesn’t matter that his first retail album since 2013’s desultory, depressing I Am Not a Human Being II is haphazardly sequenced, with the best tracks arriving somewhere in the middle and the end, and that its 87 minute running time can barely be consumed in one sitting.
His place on rap’s postmillennial Mount Rushmore is assured. He is as much of a hero to a certain generation of rap fans as Jay Z and Rakim once were. Dre’s “Xxplosive” on “Dope N*ggaz,” while Mannie Fresh revisits the Cash Money golden-era bounce of Juvenile’s “Ghetto Children” for “Start This Shit Off Right.” There are nods to the experimental Wayne of the I Am Not A Human Being projects (“Don’t Cry,” “Mess”) and also the rapper’s under-heralded pop wizardry (“Famous,” which features his daughter Reginae as hook singer), and even a love song built on a gospel sample, “Dope New Gospel.” In all, Tha Carter V is an album for anyone who’s missed Wayne-no matter which Wayne they’d missed.If the celebratory reception surrounding the long-delayed Tha Carter V proves one thing, it is how much Lil Wayne is truly beloved. “Mixtape Weezy,” as Jay-Z famously coined, is alive and well on songs like the Swizz Beatz-produced “Uproar,” Wayne blacking out over a reinterpretation of G-Dep’s 2001 hit “Special Delivery.” The nostalgia doesn’t stop (or peak) there, as Wayne and Snoop Dogg share space over a flip of Dr.
Fortunately, Wayne has rewarded his fans’ patience with 23 tracks that speak to a number of his most storied eras. Though Wayne was not without projects in between, some seven years were allowed to pass between the release of the fourth and fifth installments of the lattermost.
#LIL WAYNE NEW ALBUM THE CARTER 5 SERIES#
An artist should be so lucky to sustain the kind of longevity that would allow for multi-volume phases the likes of Wayne’s Dedication, and Da Drought mixtapes, let alone the series that made him into a superstar, Tha Carter. Maybe more than any other rapper in history, Lil Wayne’s output is defined by franchises.
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