869 Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (2008)

 869 Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (2008)


Studio Album - Hip Hop




About the Act:

Lil Wayne is a rapper. His real name is Dwayne Carter. He has sold a lot of records, made a lot of money, and apparently is very influential in the rap world. 


About the Album:

Tha Carter III is Lil Wayne's sixth studio album, and obviously third in the series called "Tha Carter". I don't know if there are any common themes, I don't plan to listen to the rest. When it was released it sold over 1million copies in a week. There were four chart hits from it. There are a lot of guests and a lot of guest producers.


My History with this Album:

None


Review:

Let's not beat about the bush. This is rap, and therefore not my home town. This particular corner is apparently a very popular corner, but I am so ignorant of the rap world I have to take Wikipedia's word for it.  There are reasons that I don't tend to listen to rap, mostly I find it musically unappealing and lyrically obnoxious.

Let's start with the lyrics. The main themes are "I'm such a stud" with graphic detail, "I've got lots of money" and "Here are some people I hate", mostly referring to the obligatory rap rivalries and disses, but including an extended spoken passage about what he dislikes about Al Sharpton. While there is some merit to the criticism he levies, Mr Carter doesn't have a history that lends itself to a moral high ground. I try to leave the personal and moral lives of the acts that make the music I review aside when I can, but there are limits. Oh, and theme number four, but less prominent than some rappers, "I'm the only good rapper and everyone else is fake", as if proclaiming it makes it true. The one fundamental pillar of rap that is missing is lots of stuff about "the hood" and killing and drug dealing, and how hard life is as a black man in the projects. That was refreshing.

Is there anything I like in the lyrics? Well, there's this one song about being an alien, which is better than the others, and one about having <cough> relations with a policewoman, which is refreshingly different, oh and one about him being Dr Carter and trying to rescue other rappers from the disease of bad rapping, otherwise, no. The biggest hit from the album is "Lollipop" - I'm not sure I've heard it before, but if it ever got radio airplay it would need to be heavily bleeped. One common theme is "girl you'd better get over yourself and please me sexually as I want or I will quickly replace you with somebody who will." The album drips misogyny. Euch.

So apparently with rap, the "flow" is important. I wouldn't know flow if hit me in the lava pool, but I will say that Lil Wayne's delivery is nuanced in ways that other rap doesn't seem to be. He has a way of putting wryness in his voice that is effective, and he can mix up his delivery to suit the track. There's one patch of fast rapping that's quite impressive. Also, I can hear and understand most of it, unlike some hip-hop. It's accessible.

Musically? Well, it is generally more musical than some other hip-hop. There is quite a bit of singing. I don't know if any of that is Wayne himself, I suspect most is his guests. In fact mostly the division of labour is that Wayne raps, guests sing and produce. Musically probably my favourite track is the one with Robin Thicke, who is OK. Some of the music backing is obviously sampled, including "Misunderstood" - I think Nina Simone's version - which is very soulful. There may be some "real" instruments in there at times, at one point I think I heard some actual Electric Bass being played. The tracks are musically diverse, so that's a good thing. There are not many tracks that are just drum machine and rap, so that's good. There are elements of soul in here, and musically it is not all dreadful.

So what's left? I've done quite a lot of description. Do I like it? No. Bits of it, I like, somewhat, other bits, well I feel profoundly affected by it. But not in a good way. If this is Lil Wayne being himself, then I really don't like him. The fact that he endorsed Donald Trump doesn't actually make me think worse of him, because my opinion of him is so bad. He has some talent, I can see that. There are better moments, but the thought that this man is a role model to anyone makes me shudder.


4/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1Do3y8IAcbYOToYQJnGwSO

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTfO7IRJ-B3BlsrBpxz5ssU3pMhisGI4D

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tha_Carter_III


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