June 2008 Archives
So, Apparently There's a New Lil Wayne Album...
Tags: Deezle, Fabolous, Juelz Santana, Kanye West, Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne: "Let the Beat Build" (prod. by Kanye West & Deezle)
from Tha Carter III
Lil Wayne: "Let the Beat Build" (Instrumental) (prod. by Kanye West & Deezle)
Lil Wayne feat. Fabolous & Juelz Santana: "Ain't Nothin' On Me" (prod. by Alchemist)
from Tha Carter III
Lil Wayne: "Playin' With Fire" (prod. by Streetrunner)
from Tha Carter III
Have you heard? The deluge of reviews came down today, though most of us have been living with Tha Carter III for 10 days or so, weighing the excitement created by Dedication 2, then Da Drought 3 and then Tha Carter III Sessions--three mixtapes that probably had more to do with this anticipation than anything--against the short but furious round of applause Tha Carter III is now catching. And in most respects rightly so. The album is nothing if not interesting, critics' bait. Unorthodox by design, it's still unclear if Universal cobbled this album together without Wayne's input--something he's insinuated in the past--or Dwayne Carter personally selected and sequenced the tracks. Regardless it's a tale of two halves. The first half, from "3 Peat" to the Robin Thicke re-team "Tie My Hands," is unhinged and thematically inconsistent, the work of a rapper with his eyes on both the charts (the vaguely deplorable "Got Money") and the nerds (the swelling, then soaring "Dr. Carter," which is basically a Ras Kass song without the references to Greek Mythology). The most conventional and maybe the most honest song here, the Babyface-aided romantic threat "Comfortable," is followed by "Phone Home" which from one listen to the next dances from brilliant to brutally dumb and back again. It's a confusing run, each song working independent of each other, almost every one a goof of some sort, even the stonefaced "Mr. Carter." That song is limp by Just Blaze standards and a bit embarrassing for Wayne considering he's annihilated by one of the few transcendent Jay-Z guest verses of the last 5 years ("That's right, plural!"), a fact particularly punishing because Jay's verse both addresses Wayne as an heir and then cops Wayne's boastful, gymnastic non sequitur formula, but sharpens it. The fun here of the first half is in the foolishness. Wayne can't be 'Pac or Jay or B.I.G.--he's just too weird and this is the work of a weirdo.
Half number two is more the work of an artist taking himself seriously, looking in the mirror (literally on "Shoot Me Down") and then lashing out at the world (Screaming "Assassinate me, bitch!" on the insane "Playin' With Fire"). Even "Lollipop" an indisputably smart, but cynical move that will probably give it the best-selling first week for a rap album since Kanye's Graduation, has a large, lush feel, with the late Static and Jim Jonsin working together to make a complete song, not just a playpen for Wayne's zonked-out flow. Which leads to what seems like the driving force that no one is talking about: I still insist that the way Wayne sounds--maybe not the pitch, but certainly the tone and the patterns of his voice--is informed by drinking lean everyday. If drugs are creative fuel, I think you can chalk the almost-discomforting flows on this album to his detachment from reality and morbid self-involvement. Most rappers are arrogant, but Wayne is self-involved and solipsistic. "Ain't Nothin' On Me," which is a bit of a sore thumb in that it's a straightforward, thunderous rap song on an album full of experiments, is a perfect example. Juelz and especially Fabolous decimate the song, weaving through Alchemist's cascading "Wet Wipes" retread. But after Fab's verse Wayne's vocodered voice slithers in, moaning and gurgling "I get money like a motherfucker," making no effort to top what just happened to his song: theft. Juelz follows with the album's most evocative line--"My wrist look like frozen Poland Spring water"--and then Wayne arrives rip-roaring through his verse, but eventually settling into more vocoder games as the track drops out. This is a guy interested in his thing, his ideas, his conception of his moment. Not winning, necessarily, but certainly being. Existing how he wants. "Let the Beat Build," the most well-conceived track here, is a perfect production synthesis, as Wayne's engineer Deezle and Kanye West combine for a rising and falling carousel of song. Wayne is doing the mixtape rapper thing again ("Approving millionaire dollar deals from my iPhone...") triumphantly, with a cleared sample, and talking about the beat ("and the beat go boom, ba-boom-ba-boom") as though it were his partner, which, naturally it is. And it too is a personal moment. I'm going to pretend "Mrs. Officer" doesn't exist.
The closer "Misunderstood" is probably the most messianic, rambling song he's ever made, a perfect capper to an eminently listenable, but sometimes worrying collection. The distance of coherence between "Dr. Carter" and that unsettling groan from "Ain't Nothin' On Me" is really something, a split of clear proportions. Just like the two halves of the album. And the two halves of Wayne's career: pre- and post-"Go DJ." Those two personalities, and more, exist in the same space on Tha Carter III.
Live: Summer Jam '08, Shockingly Harmonious
Tags: Alicia Keys, D-Block, DJ Khaled, Fat Joe, Hot 97, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Shawty Lo, T-Pain
HOT 97 Summer Jam 2008
Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Alicia Keys, T-Pain, etc.
Giants Stadium
June 1, 2008
Let's get right to it: This was Lil Wayne's show, his weekend, his controversy and his moment to spoil--which he nearly did. And though he didn't close this year's edition of Summer Jam (technically surprise guest Jim Jones did that, though Public Enemy was the last scheduled performer and Kanye West openly played martyr by complaining about closing the show, something he wasn't doing, but may as well have been for many in the audience, myself included) Wayne offered the most polarizing performance of the night, an odd spectacle that featured few hits, lots of audience groveling and some genuinely inspired star moments. As the day turned to night in Giants Stadium, he arrived on stage amidst smoke and the swell of "A Milli," a song the crowd immediately attached themselves to, even if Wayne did not. Early on it was clear Wayne was neither clear-headed nor particularly focused, but he is a machine running on charisma fuel right now.
This week he dismissed all the mixtapes DJs ("Fuck you if you a mixtape DJ") who both profited from his legendary output and helped create a historic moment in rap with that prolificacy. Then on Friday the long-awaited Tha Carter III leaked--a fascinating album I imagine I'll write about endlessly this week--and created an altogether different vessel for criticism. That his versions of "Cash Money Millionaire" and "Fireman" were mostly buoyed by the good will he's been garnering for the last 5 years--a frighteningly vast era full of hits and misses but never boredom--is hardly a surprise. He seemed a bit out of gas. He brought Shawty Lo out for his verse on the "Dey Know" remix (Shawty, however, would not even receive a mic, let alone rap) and Tity Boi followed with an abbreviated version of "Duffle Bag Boy." After that minor flurry of well-known songs, Wayne snatched a guitar, sat down calmly and begin strumming. The sounds were off-key and, despite the striving for some sort of musical legitimacy that they implied, poorly conceived. His strums morphed into "Leather So Soft," a song whose appeal escapes me to this very moment. But this is the exact moment where it was clear that Wayne has made THE LEAP. That moment when all women have fallen for a rapper and his charm no longer requires a male audience. The screams came loud and fast and without abandon. Thanks to his hit "Lollipop" (which he performed later in the set, followed by the remix with Kanye), his evolution into a masculine presence and the sly grin that accompanied the yowls of all four verses of his live set staple "Pussy Monster," an a capella wonder that literally had people rolling in the aisles of Giants Stadium, Wayne has become a pop star that has not yet lost credibility with serious rap and R&B fans, while tempting a new set of eyes and ears. That contrast was clearly highlighted by the Kanye West performance that would follow. "Pussy Monster" was joyful and lewd, crotch-grabbing absurdity. Even the dudes in black skullies and Locs couldn't help but smile. But by teaching women to love him, and in ways desire him, Wayne seems to have figured out something better than being "the best rapper alive": Best Lothario Alive. He departed, in a robe, to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" but he was the star of the night and he knew it full well.
Kanye West followed with a bombastic, if smaller scale set compared to his recent Glow In The Dark Tour. He offered a few surprises: Young Jeezy popped out, sporting a FUCK BUSH T-shirt, for the increasingly powerful and anthemic "Put On," Consequence oddly got some shine on "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Rita G dropped trou and bent over for 50,000 during an orchestral "Flashing Lights" and Kanye himself delivered a clever new "freestyle" that fumbled with sticky math and recalled the grandeur of Jay-Z's "44 Fours" at Radio City Music Hall. Like that song, it was an impressive, but breathy and "important" series of rhymes. The crowd seemed disappointed and even bored with parts of Kanye's set. And Kanye could sense it, openly admitting "I'll take this one on the chin." His set was no less fiery than his G.I.T.D. date at MSG two weeks prior (although the audience was starkly different), but after the sheer strangeness and palpable moment that Wayne created, something fell short. Perhaps if Rihanna, who failed to show up for unexplained reasons, were sandwiched between Wayne and Kanye, this may not have been a problem. But after Wayne bridged the gap, Kanye seemed to trample on it.
The rest of the show was, frankly, an organized series of adrenaline shots. What could have been a sleepy afternoon Alicia Keys set was ramped up first by a random appearance by Maino, who clearly has a smash on his hands with "Hi Haters"--the entire audience LOVED shouting the hook--and then Raekwon, Method Man and Ghostface for a Wu-Tang medley that felt unforced. Keys was seen singing almost every word to "Incarcerated Scarfaces," "C.R.E.A.M.," "Ice Cream," and "Method Man." Dressed in a white wifebeater, black jeans and rhinestone-bejeweled stiletto boots, Keys looked strong, New York, and rarely awkward. She closed with "No One" and had everyone singing along; a soft, polite moment for a generally aggro crowd.
The next punch in the face came during D-Block's swarm of East Coast rap, which included appearances by Sheek and Styles, naturally, followed by Red Cafe, Fat Joe, Fabolous, Jadakiss (who seems out of it these days), N.O.R.E., Nature, Swizz Beatz and finally a chest-thumping, redemptive cameo from LL Cool J, an object lesson in stage presence if there ever was one. "Paper Touchin'" and "Banned From TV" were highlights and, in a beautiful bit of irony, Sheek Louch, of all people, was the only artist on the stage with a current hit single, his "Good Love" floating through the Summer afternoon like a butterfly. I'm still getting over Sheek having a hit called "Good Love." These are strange times for New York rappers.
There's nothing strange about the South right now and T-Pain's set acted as a perfunctory transition into a Southern bonanza. And like the Eastern commission that preceded, the South seemed unified, gallant even. T-Pain, looking like a green Cat in the Hat, opened with his verses from Unk's "Two Step" and Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" before ceding the stage to the cavalcade, including Shawty Lo and "Dey Know," DJ Khaled, a shirtless and gargantuan Rick Ross (most surprised by the reception he got, which was huge), Khaled's new artist Ace Hood (who got a thunderous cheer, until it was revealed that Ace, who has dreads, was not Lil Wayne), Akon and Fat Joe, again. The expected cuts came pouring in: "The Boss," "I'm So Hood," "We Takin' Over," "Cashflow," "Bartender." T-Pain cleared the stage, killed "Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')," one of the great pop songs of the decade, and departed by saying, "In the words of George Bush 'Fuck y'all niggaz I'm out.'" Perfectly ridiculous.
Other highlights and lowlights, you decide which is which:
-"All my ladies who make more than 20,000 dollars a year make some noise" - followed by the requisite reggae set.
-Funk Flex in a fuchsia Polo that matched the Danny Glover-style "I'm too old for this shit" look on his face.
-Part of the genius of the show is Hot 97's DJs spinning between every set. Banger after reliable banger.
-The-Dream's dancers, in black catsuits, writhing almost as suggestively on the floor as Wayne did during his set.
-A co-worked calling The-Dream, who I adore, "a cricket."
-Nore's weight gain.
-Ray J and Yung Berg's weirdly heated and discomforting set. Berg, chill, you're doing "Sexy Lady" not "Triumph."
-The American flag trucker hat Kanye wore during "Lollipop (Remix)".
-Alicia opening with "Ghetto Story (Remix)", still one the smartest things she's ever done.
-LL's cryptic closing statement: ""A lot of people been sleeping. They gonna wake up this year." Oh-kay.
-T-Pain and Kanye nailing "Good Life," still a perfectly obvious and perfectly good song.
