Obviously I wrote this before Sorry 4 The Wait dropped, which by the way, is pretty fun but also nothing too special. Then again, I don’t think it’s supposed to be more than a one-off so stop being such dicks about it. Anyways, here’s something about Lil Wayne’s post-jail radio output which has been consistently excellent and something we’re all taking for granted. Even “How To Love” has its charms! I was also trying to wrestle with the idea that jail had a positive effect on his rapping because well, nothing positive comes out of the American justice system, but Wayne does seem to be rapping like 2009 and 2010 never happened, so…
Lil Wayne’s a superstar in an almost old-fashioned sense—you can buy a poster of him at Kmart and his T-shirt at Hot Topic—but he’s not too interested in playing the fame game on anybody else’s terms. Tha Carter III’s success came after three-plus years of constant recording (he gave away hundreds of songs for free before everyone was doing that sort of thing) and a ubiquity achieved by handing guest verses over to anyone who asked. He worked really hard on that glut of material, too, often running away with the songs on which he guested. Along with a reputation as a kush-smoking, syrup-drinking workaholic, the ridiculous output transformed Wayne into some sort of outsider artist—the Henry Darger of this rap shit…
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