Most rappers, especially nowadays, create a totally impenetrable persona—as opposed to a moderately impenetrable persona—but Wayne doesn’t do that. He yelps and screams and laughs and jokes and cries; it’s all out-there for better and worse. On this delightfully weird cover, first you just see this cute kid in like, church clothes, then, you see the tattoos and you’re freaked out, and then, you’re confused (Is the pinky ring real or photoshopped?) and then you either shit all over it or it hits you: “holy shit this is brilliant!”. Yeah, that’s Wayne and that’s this cover too.
I really hope this ends up being the real cover for ‘Tha Carter III’ because despite what everybody says, it’s really great. Like classic, iconic. And not trying-to-be iconic because it’s batshit crazy at the same time. The baby picture cover clearly invokes the 90s classics ‘Illmatic’ and ‘Ready to Die’ and it’s a kind of mix of homage to past classics and maybe a subtly aggressive assertion of the “classic” status Wayne’s engaged in when hyping ‘Tha Carter III’.
Ghost and Raekwon half-correctly took-on Biggie for swiping their slang and Nas’s album cover, but ‘Ready To Die’s cover has always seemed like an homage or corrective to the ‘Illmatic’ cover; only a partial-bite. ‘Ready to Die’s baby recalled ‘Illmatic’, but the object in a white void, with a simple font above, always made me think of Too $hort’s ‘Born to Mack’ too. In a sense, that’s what ‘Ready to Die’ was: ‘Illmatic’ meets Too $hort. One could even throw-in Common’s ‘One Day It’ll All Make Sense’ cover, featuring Common with his mother: A wholesome, sweeter version of ‘Illmatic’.
The added Wayne tattoos to the baby picture are Wayne’s update on the ‘Illmatic’ cover and perfectly fit his style; a weird mix of being really weird and interesting and totally retarded and questionable. It just makes sense. Lyrically, one of Wayne’s more interesting and affecting tricks is his—and I kinda mean this—near-Proustian ability to recall minor details of his childhood, be it pop-culture (“murder she wrote like Angela Lansbury”) or more specific details about growing up in New Orleans or remembering his mother or riding his bike or whatever. He merges this with his adult side; dips into thug talk and shit-talking and plenty of similes for getting head, and also, some complex adult/relationship rap. Just as in his raps, the cover to ‘Tha Carter III’ takes the two seemingly opposing “sides” and merges them and the merger is appropriately awkward.
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Have you thought about adding some differing opinions to your article? I think it will really enhance everyones understanding.
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18 Jun 12 at 9:17 am