In keeping with his flips of Rich Homie Quan (“I hit it all type of ways”) and iLoveMakonnen (“I get in her stomach like Mylanta”), Weezy’s take on Future’s breakthrough hit served as the springboard for some of his most gleefully filthy boasts, comparing his girl’s body to a mermaid and warning “don’t sit on top of this dick if you’re scared of heights.” And never let the narrative show that Wayne is anything less than the most inventive horndog this side of Kevin Gates. “Abortion” is a bizarre, psychedelic journey through gospel samples, some leftover rock dynamics, and ferocious rapping (“I’m shooting for the stars / Astronauts dodge bullets,” “When life sucks, I just enjoy the head”), with a cocky, bluesy chorus that’s every bit as entertainingly insane as it needs to be: “We in the belly of the beast / And she thinkin’ bout abortion.” This side-two oddity epitomizes everything the rest of Tha Carter IV should’ve been: adventurous and nearly indescribable. But it has some of his sweetest and most genuinely erotic phrasing ever: “I make her lose her voice,” “Take her clothes off with my teeth,” “I do it how she ask / And I come last.” Despite plenty of strong Drake appearances (one could argue that this album was where Wayne officially passed the baton to the most-discussed rap figure of the 2010s), Dreezy doesn’t appear on the album’s best pop song, which chopped up a victorious, Alphaville-ready synth riff underneath the usual gynephilic bragging that killed any chances of the hook’s radio success. The intended stopgap I Am Not a Human Being was hyped less than Rebirth or Tha Carter IV and surprise, it’s surer of itself than either. But “Prom Queen,” its first and most rawk single sucked, leaving too little goodwill for the proper album’s bright spots, such as the beautiful melody of this hallucinatory, not-very-rawk Eminem duet that came with a nice bridge and a wowza chorus (“I’mma pick the world up and I’mma drop it on your f-ing head”) that could’ve been a sure shot had it been attached to a project that wasn’t already hemorrhaging by the time it got its own video. still owes us a faux Sturgill Simpson album. Why not a darkwave Kanye West album or a nü-metal Wayne record? If anything, we should regret there aren’t more of these. Rebirth wasn’t ill-advised in itself if Godsmack can do a rock album, why can’t Lil Wayne? One of the fun things about Auto-Tune initially was the idea that rappers we were already big fans of could use it to realize their own singing fantasies.
LIL WAYNE AND EMINEM SONGS FULL
But only two songs are still somewhat lacking in vindication: “Playing With Fire” - which is just OK and switched out in favor of the legendary “Pussy Monster” on the Japanese edition, the one you should own - and this kooky, atonal-marimba-and-kiddie-voice banger loaded with quotables like “I’m on top like the attic” and a surprisingly warm, four-bar paean to his daughter that climaxes adorably with “I’m richer than all y’all/ I got a bank full of pride.” Many people hated “Lollipop” too, which admittedly has improved majestically with time (it’s kinda bluesy, actually!). The idea that there’s an underrated song on Tha Carter III seems ridiculous eight years later, but at the time there was plenty of skepticism over “Comfortable” (too sappy), “Got Money” (too normal) and “Dontgetit” (that bizarre Al Sharpton rant), along with scattered moments here and there that failed to convince his sizable contingent of skeptics.
Impeccably orchestrated, half-melodized power ballad “Love Me or Hate Me” somehow never gets talked about, even though it features Wayne singing, pre-Auto-Tune, and rattles off airtight boast after hilarious boast in tune: “I’m higher than an eagle’s feet,” “I’m tight like ballet tights.” With the conceit of “I swear the other day I pissed Cristal,” he also beat Future by about eight years. The Leak in general may be Weezy’s most taken-for-granted release: “I’m Me” and “Kush” are beloved of die-hards, but all five songs are perfect it might actually be his best record, which is why it was included as a bonus disc the following year with certain lucky editions of Tha Carter III.
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