Lil’ Wayne - Tha Carter III Mixtape

There comes a time when everything you’ve planned falls apart around your feet, revealing that you weren’t as on point as you really thought. Where you go from there depends upon you - you can wallow about in the dregs and dross of the past or you can realize that you have the opportunity to move forward onto something new. While this situation could come about regarding a host of issues - one’s intrinsic philosophical/theological beliefs, how one creates or absorbs art, or whatever - what matters is whether or not you open or close yourself to these new potentialities. As necessary as it might be to mourn the ashes of a fallen artifact, it’s equally necessary to build anew upon those ashes, to build something that incorporates the old into the new.

This is the circumstance in which Lil Wayne has found himself in the past few months, since the initial tracks for Tha Carter III were leaked to the denizens of the Internet back in Fall 2007. The esteemed, self-described “Best Rapper Alive” could have easily railed against this premature broadcast of his music, ahead of his personal timetable, and even used this scenario as an excuse had the album been panned by critics. However, par for his course, this high-energy performer decided to take what was given to him and turn the tables on those who had done the leaking. Taking a page from his own book (he self-released for free digital download Da Drought III mixtape), Lil Wayne originally hoped to release the leaked album at the end of December 2007 with four un-leaked tracks, and when that fell through, he put together a five-song EP entitled The Leak EP for sale through online music vendors on December 25, 2007. Instead of whining about his projections being out of whack, the rapper embraced the fact that people love his music and want to get it quickly as possible, a position that more artists have only recently started to take.

But what becomes of the actual album? Will fans ever be able to listen to the album that Wayne really wants to unleash? Thankfully, even though it has been pushed back to a February or March 2008 release date, this record serves as a testament to hard work, dedication, perseverance, superb lyrical style, and some of the best MC skills on the planet. Tha Carter III Mixtape overflows with aggressive, caustic wordplay and is comprised of equal parts swagger, passion, and aplomb, as Wayne discourses on a host of familiar topics: love, friendship, home (his beloved Hollygrove, New Orleans), sex, and weed. Less sing-along-able and radio-friendly than the tracks on his 2005 release Tha Carter II, where this album makes its mark is through Wayne’s intimacy with the mic and through a host of production tricks that causes the music to both flow smoothly and hit hard.

The cuts on this enormous album are awash in quality samples, rich keyboard swells, and percussive beats, including the marvelous inclusion of “What About Love” from Heart on the earnest ballad “Something You Forgot.” Other tracks standout from the 23 offerings include “Kush,” an ode to his favorite green herb, “I’m Me” (the full-length version of which can be found The Leak), the creeping “When You See Me (featuring Baby),” the driving, club-friendly “Money Ova Here (featuring Stacks),” the thick-pounding “I’m A Beast,” and the hilariously raunchy Kanye West-produced “Did It Before.” However, what proves to be the strongest aspect of Tha Carter III is also its weakness - it borrows too much in terms of style and pace from Lil Wayne’s love for mixtapes, often to the detriment how sections of the album flow into others. While some might love the effect, it can be bristling to others, especially people looking for a straight-up banging album.

In the end, this was one of the more difficult reviews I’ve had to write in awhile. I grew up listening to rap and hip-hop, but ceased listening to it in college when I felt that the industry had sold its soul to the marketing gods who proclaimed that it must be palatable to white kids and radio stations. I’ve only since returned to hip-hop in the last two years or so, and have only recently begun to research what I’ve missed in the past decade since my departure. I would have originally deemed someone like Lil Wayne to be disinteresting, mostly because his over-the-top personality tends to precede his actual artistic ability. Thus, the strongest endorsement that I can give Lil Wayne and Tha Carter III Mixtape is that they have helped to restore my faith that real rap still exists in the world, music that’s not about the false trappings of hip-hop culture, but about life.