Can't front: I didn't start taking Lil Wayne seriously as a rapper until The Carter. Mea culpa. He was in my Top 5 from then until The Carter 3, and for a good 2.5 year stretch he was arguably the best rapper in the world.
Some consider the Dedication period to be his best. It was a great era, before youthful hunger gave way to the excess and self-consciousness of success, but I find myself fuckin most with the wilderness years between the Hot Boys and mainstream respectability. Maybe it's cause it bridges what was great about his Hot Boys incarnation and the rapper he would become; maybe it's because Pop Star Wayne has made such frustrating artistic choices that it's refreshing to return to the days when he was focused on rap.
Either way, here he is catchin wreck on a Spanish Guitar beat on the overlooked 500 Degreez, courtesy of the Great Man Mannie Fresh. Wayne sips cachaça from a gourd he then passes to Breno Mello, a rapper and guitarist bearing their souls beneath a drafty veranda in some picturesque favela.
Might be my most played off that album. bar Like Father Like Son, I prob prefer the earlier Wayne albums slightly.
ReplyDeleteIts weird, close to the millenium the music/accents/subjects more nawlins but his actual style sounded more east coast jiggy street rapperish to me, he really sounded like someone who listened to fab and roc a fella or w e. gives the Gillie rumours more credence imo, esp if you think ppl like lito or currensy or whoever more southeren took the reigns after. idk these guessing games dont shed much light but Im 100% Juvie wrote "uptown streets where all my ends meet" thats v Juvie imo
Anyways always thought it made for interesting switch up to hear someone like that on Mannie beats.
The "spanish guitar" tags v fruitful
ReplyDeleteThat whole era between NYC hegemony and the rise of the south was pretty interesting cause people from the north were forced to realize that these weren't just some simple country cousins (altho ppl still refer to Kast as "country," which is mind-boggling). It's hard to believe in retrospect, but I remember people being genuinely surprised that ATL rappers listened to Wu-Tang or whomever, as if Illmatic never made its way to Best Buys of the south. I recall that Wayne was always up front about being a Jay-Z stan.
ReplyDeleteIDK about the Gillie shit, tho I was a believer at one time. I'm sure Wayne soaked up some of Gillie's style and cribbed a verse here or there, but Gillie has always come off as such a desperate parasite that I don't wanna give him too much credit. But who knows? The ghostwriter question always adds layers of intrigue.
Yeah I read a Gillie album review once that summed it up p well "these words sound better out Waynes mouth" or something. Still need to check out that Major Figgas shit though.
ReplyDeleteIt still seems weird to me sometimes tbh, even w Gunplay whos in his 30s and from somewhere w relatively few big local rappers his fav rappers are Nas and Biggie
Did you get into the Sqad Up tapes? That was where his new style really began to cohere.
ReplyDeleteOnly a little bit, I gotta go back and listen to those again
DeleteI like that precursor tape where he burns through all his old rhymes in one take over like So Fresh So Clean or w e
ReplyDeleteWhere You At? and Way Of Life are both top 5 Wayne singles of the noughties.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute favourite thing on this album is the first Big Tigger Live On The Radio interlude, though. Tha Carter 5 def needs a Tigger interlude.
If that's the one with the "finger in the booty" call, I agree.
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