Lil' Wayne gives insane vibe in Tha Carter III

By: John Holmes

Posted: 9/11/08

09/11/08 - Lil' Wayne's Tha Carter III is an eccentric, inventive, insane experience. Lil' Wayne released Tha Carter III, the third installment in his Tha Carter series, to monumental hype and buzz.

A year of leaks, mixtapes and guest appearances on probably every track offered to the 25-year-old MC built the hype for Tha Carter III to a deafening pitch, and the success of his smash hit "Lollipop" only increased the demand for the album.

With the amount of hype surrounding its release, it would be only natural to anticipate that the album would fall short of expectations. Haters might have even hoped that the album would fail to stand up to its billing.

Luckily for Lil' Wayne, he knows just how to deal with haters. In "Mr. Carter," a collaboration with Jay-Z, he raps: "I got summer hatin' on me 'cause I'm hotter than the sun/ Got spring hatin' on me 'cause I ain't never sprung/ Winter hatin' on me 'cause I'm colder than y'all/ And I would never, I would never, I would never fall! I been hated by the seasons/So f*** y'all, hatin' for no reason."

After such a dismissal to the haters, the album only gets better. Tha Carter III is an exhilarating experience that proves that Weezy is on top of his game stylistically and lyrically, and delivers some of the freshest, most creative songs not only in today's mainstream hip-hop, but also in music in general.

Wayne bounces from the eerie, E.T.-themed "Phone Home" ("we are not the same, I am an alien / like Gonzalez"), to the sexy, laid-back groove of "Mrs. Officer," which chronicles an encounter with a female police officer, and puts a new spin on an NWA hip-hop classic. "She know I'm raw, she know I'm from the street / and all she want me to do is f*** the po-lice."

Wayne shouts out to his pop contemporaries, referencing the hit singles "Umbrella" and "Irreplaceable" in "Got Money" and "Comfortable." The latter, a Kanye West production featuring Babyface singing the hook, works especially well, flipping the context of the song: Babyface croons to a lover too sure of her standing, "If you don't love me, somebody else will," and Wayne warns, "Feelin' 'Irreplaceable,' listening to Beyonce? / Well okay, I'll put you out on your 'B'Day."

Even with accessible tunes such as these, Lil' Wayne shows elsewhere that he's not afraid to court controversy. On the emotional "Playing with Fire," he declares "…so assassinate me b**** / 'cause I'm doing the same shit Martin Luther King did / checking in the same hotel in the same suite b**** /same balcony, like, assassinate me b****!"

As blasphemous as the comparison to one of the greatest civil rights leaders in our nation's history may seem, it's hard to argue with his conviction and emotional intensity in his delivery of these lines.

Similarly controversial is the final track, "Don'tGetIt," which is less notable for its verses than it is for the seven-plus-minute, marijuana-aided rant on the state of America's prison system and the Reverend Al Sharpton; Lil Wayne raps, "You are no MLK, you are no Jesse Jackson…you're nobody."

Overall, the album is refreshing, eccentric and brilliant. Lil' Wayne is an artist of high caliber, taking risks rather than sticking to some "tried-and-true" formula like other artists in today's music scene.

But with all that risk-taking, there are bound to be some mistakes. On the track "La La," Wayne seems to be unsure of where to go with the odd beat produced by David Banner, which consists of a xylophone and a young child singing the song's title. The result is that guests Brisco and Busta Rhymes outshine him.

Also, "Tie My Hands," a song describing his reaction to Hurricane Katrina in his hometown of New Orleans, suffers when he raps, "Take away the football team, the basketball team / now all we got left is me to represent New Orleans." The self-aggrandizing sentiment clashes with the message of the rest of the song.

These complaints however are few and far between. The album as a whole is a great accomplishment for the artist, and easily lives up to the hype surrounding its release. Wayne raps at the end of track "Mr. Carter," "Next time you mention Pac, Biggie, or Jay-Z / Don't forget Weezy Baby!" If he keeps making albums like this, that doesn't sound like too bad of a suggestion.