At this point, is anyone genuinely excited to hear Lil Wayne's Carter V? Isn't it the rap game equivalent of a high school senior turning in homework assignments a year and a half after he's graduated?
While Weezy struggles to launch his final(??) album from the Cash Money vault, his progeny Young Thug is rolling out his own debut album, Tha Barter 6, which, given its blatantly derivative title, has understandably rankled Weezy. Fraternal squabbling aside, which of these imminent releases is more important, and more likely to be good: Weezy's Carter V or Thugger's Barter 6? Only one of them is dropping this week, and the other may never even see the light of day. For now, let's talk about hype and expectations.
Conversation between Justin Charity (@brothernumpsa) and Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)
CHARITY: With no teaser tracklisting, just one unconfirmed single, and minimal rollout behind it, I have no idea what to expect of Young Thug’s major label debut album. Rich Gang’s Tha Tour Part 1 was my favorite album of last year, but that mixtape is very much a street release: messy, overloaded, a one-take wonder of chemistry between Thugger and Rich Homie Quan. Young Thug has never made a proper, marketable album, however. Do I want to hear a “well-rounded” Young Thug project? Are DJ Mustard and Tinashe gonna worm their way onto this shit? Such possibilities are endless, and the margin for error is lowkey terrifying. Thugger’s a genius, but what if his Atlantic debut does Yung Sosa numbers?
Young Thug has never made a proper, marketable album.
Thing is, Young Thug is the most innovative and most exciting rapper out right now. He’s an ambitious musician and multi-dimensional troll. Weezy hasn’t been that man for a minute. He might could pull off a coup on the strength of Drake and Nicki’s songwriting plus a few decent features from the usual suspects—Rozay, Nas, those guys—but Weezy’s charisma and pussy entendres have been exhausted since Tha Carter IV, if we’re being honest. Remind me: what’s the point of Lil Wayne dropping an album 2015?
FRAZIER: THE POINT? How about redemption? Rejuvenation?! Until the foreboding prospect of a mangled release pushed Wayne into dropping messy, mediocre tracks like "Off Day" and that song with The LOX whose name I can’t even remember—and worse, the awful, momentum killing Sorry 4 The Wait 2—, fam was on fire. "Believe Me" isn’t even the best song out of Carter V’s initial offerings. "D’usse" and "Krazy" find the Weezle rapping his ass off without help from his Young Money grad students who typically eclipse him these days. Carter V was destined to be a comeback and retirement in one fell swoop. Grand opening, grand closing. Then Health Inspector Birdman came through and slapped an F on the window.
CHARITY: Can’t rejuvenate a corpse. We can blame Birdman for Weezy’s decline until his braids fall out, but creatively, Lil Wayne is 362-year-old Fidel Castro in the streets. Hobbling along, propped by an entourage of potential successors. Granted, all rap albums are overloaded with features, but Wayne is the one A-list rapper who, straight up, couldn’t carry a solo rap project on his own strength, even if his livelihood and career depended upon it—which isn’t really the case, considering the rather favorable (to Weezy) terms of Drake’s Young Money contract, which ought to be yielding enough revenue to subsidize several drug habits, weekly airfare, a single mortgage, and child support. There’s just no good reason for Lil Wayne to be rapping at this point. Take a sabbatical, or an internship, or something.
Is Thugger about to drop "Tha Bloodprint"? Is Weezy meanwhile about to drop his very own "Ludaversal"?
Young Thug is meanwhile tasked with mapping the future of hip-hop, which will certainly be cased in his image: a provocative mumble with blonde dreds and a genderfunk wardrobe. Is Thugger about to drop Tha Bloodprint? Is Weezy meanwhile finna drop his very own Ludaversal?
FRAZIER: I fuck with Young Thug but I don’t trust or believe in him nearly as much. I will bump Barter 6 at the earliest availability and opportunity, but there was no song or verse during his meteoric rise in 2014, no matter how enjoyably indiscernible (which is not to say unintelligible, a common Thugger misconception that must be eradicated), to make me actively anticipate a full-length release from him. Also, as you mention, let's not forget that Thug has never created a solo project that has stood the test of time or approaches the quality of a Weezy album.
I cringe when critics, fans, and rap peers alike hail Tha Carter III as a classic, but there’s no denying the hype leading up to its release was a moment in rap history. Thug doesn’t have a fraction of that hype for me. You admitted Tha Tour is fun albeit messy; I’m approaching his first official, well-rounded full-length project with nothing more than casual curiosity. If we’re attributing Jay Z classics, I’d much rather witness Wayne pull off a Black Album (I feel blasphemous even insinuating Carter V would actually be as good as an excuse to run with the metaphor) and fade into black as nothing more than a guaranteed guest feature on Drake and Nicki’s bonus tracks. The only thing more exciting than an ascension? A comeback.
CHARITY: The illusory promise of a Weezy comeback is shattered, however, by the actual music he’s released in the ramp-up to the Carter V. If Sorry 4 tha Wait 2 is any indication—and it certainly, inherently is—Weezy has lost either his capability or his patience for song construction. He's a mess of bored labia metaphors that are dry mimicry of his mixtape genius ten summers ago. The “Show Me What You Got” remix this is not.
In re Thugger’s intelligibility, you’re right, of course: he’s no more or less decipherable than Weezy was with his inexplicably popular verse on T-Pain’s “Can’t Believe It” in ‘08. Haters and old-heads (same diff) dismiss Thugger and others as mumbled stream-of-nonsense, and I think back to when Jay asked, “Do you listen to music? or do you just skim through it?” Rap reactionaries need Q-tips more than we ever needed Q-Tip.
Summer is all about car stereo harmonies, and Thugger is a savant and master of such. Plus, the kid doesn’t keep us waiting.
If "Sorry 4 tha Wait 2" is any indication, Weezy has lost either his capability or his patience for song construction.
FRAZIER: SFW2 is infinite trash emojis, no doubt. But it raises an interesting point. Maybe Wayne hasn’t lost It...he’s just lost that. He’s not the ambidextrous extraterrestrial that can chef hit songs from scratch while also making yo shit hotter with his free hand.
Call me a sucker but through it all, I have the most cautious of hopes in Lil Wayne, strange since I was always a fan but never a stan. The best moments on Dedication 5 are originals like the awesome Chance-vehicle “You Song.” I bang "D’usse" like it just came out. His solo offerings and guest verses have more or less kept his promise after lukewarm response to IANAHB 2 humbled him. SFW2 may have even been a road bump, hasty in its spite—"Fuck Up Some Commas" freestyle is absolute fire, to say nothing of his chill but energized verse on Tyler's "Smuckers."
We’ve gotten so used to half-hearted, worthless offerings from Weezy that you have to do a double-take before you realize he’s back on his bullshit. Example: at first listen, Drake and Nicki blow him out of the water on "Truffle Butter," because such is the typical narrative these days (and they surely do on “Only”). But listen closer, and his verse is fun and technically outpaces his protégé . Is it downright embarrassing watching him totally brick a would-be layup like Meek's Dreams and Nightmares? Totally. But, a reminder: if it were up to Wayne, there wouldn’t be a wait worth apologizing for in the first place.
Anyway, if “Take Kare” is all these two can come up with when Wayne isn’t bitter and navel-gazing then may the family squabbling continue until the end of days.
