Showing posts with label Lil Wayne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lil Wayne. Show all posts
5.2.09
24.6.08
A Millie
One million records sold!?!
An idiot savant’s most experimental studio album became the first record to sell a million units in its first week since 50 Cent’s The Massacre. The significance of this has been severely underplayed (unlike “Lollipop”). This could seriously mean the end of bimbos.
The Massacre and The Carter III could not be any more dissimilar. Massacre was a sure bet. The follow-up to the infectious Get Rich or Die Trying, it tried to stick to its predecessor's template but played more like Got Rich and Stopped Trying. The first song released - the single-entendre ditty “Candy Shop”– was infamous for two main reasons: driving producer Scott Storch to prominence and 50’s sung chorus fully transforming him into his nemesis Ja Rule. The Massacre sold millions in spite of itself and solidified 50 Cent as rap’s new Goliath.
But, 50 is a bimbo (his constant need for attention, his big tits, and the fact that he surrounds himself with friends that are less appealing than him are ALL textbook bimbo moves). And I’ve never been all that into bimbos, but I used to have a thing for the inscrutable girls. I always assumed the frowning disinterested ones were guarding something worth getting. Their diffident mumblings, easy dismissals, and stilted conversation would ensnare me and I’d strain to untangle their workings. Listen to “Shoot Me Down” from TC3 and tell me that’s not an inscrutable girl.
“Please don’t shoot me down,” she coos. But it’s Wayne’s plea to himself. In the context of Wayne’s drug abuse and his admitted admiration of Kurt Cobain, it makes sense that he wrote a contemplative grunge-rock song. Wayne seems to be asking two contradictory questions. He asks that he not undo all of his success with his addictions, but he also asks that he not fuck up his own high. In between, there are tangents, tough-talk and gossamer-thin metaphors breaking up the linear flow of his thoughts. Despite a lack of linear literalism in his lyrics, Lil Wayne loses little of his meaning.
The fact that “Shoot Me Down” immediately precedes “Lollipop” is no surprise, though. The problem with mystery women is that eventually and inevitably you find that their icy hauteur or stolid indifference only served as a mask for a much more prosaic personality. Once you take off the glasses and let down the hair, sometimes you just get the prom queen.
Downloads
Lil Wayne: Shoot Me Down
See above
Wale: Mr. Carter (freestyle)
Wale is flying up my favorite rapper charts with stuff like this and his latest mixtape.
50 Cent: Ski Mask Way
Easily the best song on The Massacre thanks mainly to Disco D's (RIP) production.
An idiot savant’s most experimental studio album became the first record to sell a million units in its first week since 50 Cent’s The Massacre. The significance of this has been severely underplayed (unlike “Lollipop”). This could seriously mean the end of bimbos.
The Massacre and The Carter III could not be any more dissimilar. Massacre was a sure bet. The follow-up to the infectious Get Rich or Die Trying, it tried to stick to its predecessor's template but played more like Got Rich and Stopped Trying. The first song released - the single-entendre ditty “Candy Shop”– was infamous for two main reasons: driving producer Scott Storch to prominence and 50’s sung chorus fully transforming him into his nemesis Ja Rule. The Massacre sold millions in spite of itself and solidified 50 Cent as rap’s new Goliath.
But, 50 is a bimbo (his constant need for attention, his big tits, and the fact that he surrounds himself with friends that are less appealing than him are ALL textbook bimbo moves). And I’ve never been all that into bimbos, but I used to have a thing for the inscrutable girls. I always assumed the frowning disinterested ones were guarding something worth getting. Their diffident mumblings, easy dismissals, and stilted conversation would ensnare me and I’d strain to untangle their workings. Listen to “Shoot Me Down” from TC3 and tell me that’s not an inscrutable girl.
“Please don’t shoot me down,” she coos. But it’s Wayne’s plea to himself. In the context of Wayne’s drug abuse and his admitted admiration of Kurt Cobain, it makes sense that he wrote a contemplative grunge-rock song. Wayne seems to be asking two contradictory questions. He asks that he not undo all of his success with his addictions, but he also asks that he not fuck up his own high. In between, there are tangents, tough-talk and gossamer-thin metaphors breaking up the linear flow of his thoughts. Despite a lack of linear literalism in his lyrics, Lil Wayne loses little of his meaning.
The fact that “Shoot Me Down” immediately precedes “Lollipop” is no surprise, though. The problem with mystery women is that eventually and inevitably you find that their icy hauteur or stolid indifference only served as a mask for a much more prosaic personality. Once you take off the glasses and let down the hair, sometimes you just get the prom queen.
Downloads
Lil Wayne: Shoot Me Down
See above
Wale: Mr. Carter (freestyle)
Wale is flying up my favorite rapper charts with stuff like this and his latest mixtape.
50 Cent: Ski Mask Way
Easily the best song on The Massacre thanks mainly to Disco D's (RIP) production.
Erratic
2.6.08
Mr. Carter
My list of my dream collaborations is now one duo shorter. To me, "Hello Brooklyn" was one of the most disappointing moments in music history. I looked at the tracklist for American Gangster and was all abuzz for track 4, but when it finally came around it only had Weezy (F. Baby) on the chorus and Jigga rapping 8th-grade lunchroom freestyle bullshit like "I'll lay Flat in your Bush." As far as Jay-Z songs go, it wasn't even bonus-disc material.
But, if that was required for "Mr. Carter" to happen, then praise be to all B-sides with awkward choruses. Dwayne Carter sets the table with a typical stream-of-consciousness verse with an especially sizzurp-addled section addressing hating seasons. Then, Sean Carter (Young!) appears with a free-association "top this" flurry of a verse that lights a fire up under Wayne's ass for a monster last verse. As Wayne said, "Colossal."
Without further ado:
Lil Wayne ft. Jay-Z: Mr. Carter
16.5.08
Non Sequitur
Dear Lil Wayne,
You play a mean electric guitar. What’s your favorite rock band?
Mincemeat, Newark, NJ
Nirvana. I been into them since “Teen Spirit.” There used to be this video-request station called the Box, and some motherfucker must have loved Nirvana, ’cause that video was always on. I loved it—everyone was throwing everyone else around, and all the girls looked like they were ready to do whatever. When Kurt Cobain killed himself, I was like, Damn. Other niggas were like, Who? Back then, if you knew some rock shit and your homey didn’t, that was the shit. Like, Nigga, you don’t know that? [Sings the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” riff.] They’d be like, He a different type of nigga.
EXACTLY.
Check out more hilarious answers (including one about his beef with 50 Cent) here
Oh yeah:
Lil Wayne ft. Kanye West: Lollipop (remix)
9.5.08
Promethazine Fiend
Dude looks like a gargoyleI have this theory that Lil Wayne has gone crazy. Not in a "you crazy, boy" kinda way, but in an "I hope the authorities don't find the bodies and manifesto I hid under the floorboards" way. I usually use the last 10 or 15 (terrible) songs that he's released as evidence of this. Add in his string of unhinged interviews and you start approaching a pretty convincing argument. Blame it on the weed and sizzurp.
But, maybe he's not crazy; maybe he's just lazy and calculated. He doesn't want to live up to the high lyrical expectations that he created with his 18-month tear and he wants to create a mythology around himself. So he starts rapping nonsense ("I'm a venereal disease like a menstrual bleed / Threw the pencil and leak the sheet of the tablet in my mind"...wtf?), cackling about his love of promethazine, and posturing like an old bluesman at his rap shows. Wayne's been that calculated before. Facing a struggling industry, Weezy decided not to record an album and instead to cash in on his immense popularity by charging in the low six-figures for guest appearances on other artist's records. This strategy made him a near-ubiquitous figure on urban radio and translated into more success. So, yeah, don't underestimate Mr. F Baby's acumen. Maybe he's saving all the good verses for projects he'll actually be paid for.
Bun B ft. Lil Wayne: Damn I'm Cold
from II Trill
Glasses Malone ft. Lil Wayne & Baby: Haters
from DJ Skee's radio show
9.4.08
Tha Carter III Cover
Tangible proof that being the recipient of so much critical ballsack slathering has made Lil Wayne believe all his ideas are good ones.19.11.07
2007 in Review: Duffle Bag Boy
I used to substitute "ninja" for "nigga" when I rhymed along to rap songs, but I quit doing that. At best, it's an illogical attempt at self-censorship; at worst, it's making a joke of a racial epithet. Either way, it's a stupid token gesture that loses any significance in light of the graver issues that America still faces with race relations.
Figure out how that applies to this song:
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