Tha Carter IV - Lil Wayne

Cuts Only

Oh. Hai. Sup? So, what's new? How about that new Facebook layout, huh? Now I can see which song lyrics relate to a grade-school acquaintance's daily life in two places. I heard it's only going to get worse ... Face it: the Zucks is fucking up.

But, to get back to the blog, I decided to review Tha Carter IV in honor of Weezy F. Baby's birthday on Sept. 27: plus, I thought it would be easier to find all the tracks on YouTube at this point. It's also on Spotify.

While we're on the subject, I don't see how this Spotify deal is exactly legal. Isn't this the definition of pirating? I'm not really sure how it works, but I think people can listen to music from your iTunes or something. I guess downloading without buying is stealing, but listening to it for free in some cloud program makes it OK. Also, isn't this an invasion of privacy? People can go into my music library? It makes things a lot easier for me to review new stuff, but I can't see how this thing can ethically stay up.

But I know a lot of you are Lil Wayne fans, and so am I — just not a super-fan. I only own the rest of the Tha Carter albums. This means:

1. I don't have every single mixtape he's ever released. He put out at least 153 of these things last month alone. If that makes me some punk buster, that's because I am. I'm a 23-year-old white college graduate currently living in the suburbs with my parents until I can find a job to help cover my expenses. Pretty pathetic, but what are you going to do? I listened to this album while my neighbors were taking their 4-year-old daughter and 11-month-old son to Chuck E. Cheese's so as not to disturb them. My guess is that if you're reading this, you probably don't live in Newark, so step off and eat a Nature Valley Granola Bar or something. You can't go wrong with Oats 'n Honey.

2. I don't have any of his pop-guitar shit, such as Rebirth or anything of the like. What I still don't understand is how after three years or whenever he decided to pick up an instrument, Lil Wayne still sucks at guitar. If he wants some lessons from a sick axe-master like myself (I digress), he would only need to contact me. I'll do it for the modest sum of $20K a lesson.

But let's direct our attention to Tha Carter IV, the first album Wayne released since he served a prison sentence for gun possession at Riker's Island. While I feel like the rapper has not missed a step lyrically, I find that this album cannot live up to the lofty precedents that Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III set. Although the songs gain some momentum toward the end, the album lacks that overall "wow" factor that seemed obvious on his previous projects.

I blame a lot of this on some piss-poor production. Most of the songs sound like something out of a Ridley Scott-sci-fi soundtrack — corny and ominous synthesizer melodies that resonate terribly. After perusing the track listings, the pair Cool & Dre were the only technicians I could recognize. This does not help Lil Wayne. Sometimes, no matter how well he strings his words together, he cannot climb out of the metaphorical hole these producers created for him — e.g. not even the line "But they all on my wire like Stringer Bell" can save Wayne from such a stale background of "Nightmares of the Bottom." Yeah. He referenced one of the craftiest gangsters in television history, Stringer Bell from "The Wire," and that even that cannot save the song.

The good news is the album gets better as it goes along. If you're the one person who hasn't heard "How to Love," you'll notice how much of a departure it is. There's a reason why this is the seminal single of this work. Wayne ceases to be a rapper and becomes a singer-songwriter serenading the listener about the plights of women scarred by uncaring men. It comes out of right field for Wayne, who has made it perfectly clear in his songs that he has no time for women interested in his money or fame and, in turn, advocates detachment from a monogamous lifestyle. Here, Wayne shows he is capable of being a romantic.

The next song "President Carter," a more typical rap with a simple-yet-effective hook that is lacking from the others, wittily sampling exerts from President Jimmy Carter's inauguration (Lil Wayne's real name is Dwayne Carter, for those who don't get the pun). Here, Wayne gives his own qualifications for presidential candidacy and muses on the abolition of the separation of church and state, the foolishness of "The War on Drugs," and lighting up while getting blow jobs in the Oval Office. Good stuff, and a solid song.

But what is shocking, and what might be the most noteworthy, is the newly established Roc Nation/Young Money Rivalry could possibly escalate because of a verse on "It's Good."

To get you up to speed, Birdman, Lil Wayne's mentor and Cash Money Records head (the guy who writes Lil Wayne's checks), said his surrogate son was a much better rapper than Jay-Z. Needless to say, Jay-Z didn't think this was the case, citing his monetary worth as the ultimate proof. He then dissed Birdman on the new single "H.A.M.," lambasting that the Cash Money mogul can't even touch the bank account of his wife, Beyonce, let alone his own.

Lil Wayne, in turn, comes back hard on "It's Good" with this verse:

"Talkin 'bout baby money? I got your baby money
Kidnap your bitch, get that 'how much you love your lady' money
I know you fake n----, press your brakes n----
I'll take you out, that's a date n----
I'm a grown ass blood, stop playin with me
Play asshole and get an ass whippin'"

Not only does it show huge balls to even attack Jay-Z and stand up for his mentor, it also shows that Wayne goes for the jugular, attacking the two things Jay-Z loves most: Beyonce and money. Like a comic-book villain, he wants to make him choose which one he considers more important. These are all words, of course, but no one has come that hard at the seemingly invincible Jigger Man since Nas. To hear some critics say that Wayne phoned it in on this album, this is the only piece of evidence you need to argue otherwise. That's the way you do it, folks. This is how you start the next huge feud in the rap community. This kind of puts Drake in a bad position, doesn't it? The rapper, formerly of "Degrassi: The Next Generation" fame, has been under the tutelage of both artists, and was featured on this track.

Note: Drake, as usual, brings down his two featured songs on Tha Carter IV with his presence.

So there are good songs that will be awesome to add to your Lil Wayne catalog here. However, I think the rapper made a mistake not getting some better names to help him with production. Without this part, it all becomes muddled and unpolished. Tha Carter IV does not equal the effort of Tha Carter III — there is not even an argument. I don't doubt that some die-hard fans would consider this as one of the best releases of the year, but it didn't seem like that to me. If you keep him on your musical peripheral or are just a casual fan like I am, this might not be the album for you. If you have everything he's ever done, along with a clone growing in a tank made with DNA from a clump of his dreads, then by all means grip some purple drank and bump Tha Carter IV at high volume.

For Your Consideration: "How to Love," "President Carter," "It's Good"

For Next Time: I'm with You - Red Hot Chili Peppers perhaps?