Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (Review)
What up one & all. Sky Bento here on the check-in once again. Big Bento Energy is most definitely in full effect. Hope you & yours are doing good & well. Drinking water, protecting your mental health, knowing the vibes & all.
Days are shorter. Nights are colder. Seasonal depression is creeping up. I hope we’re all prepared to ward off our demons this year. Honestly, I originally wanted to get this review in closer to the man’s birthday but… yeah. It’s Fall again. Besides, I always think of the monster himself around Halloween time anyway. So it’s only right that I hit you with another one. Don’t let this off the cuffs intro misguide you though: this is an extremely important album. Released at the peak of Wayne’s omnipresence, his output was unmatched. Pretty sure Billboard even made a list of Lil Wayne’s top 8675309 features that year. The man had really hit his creative stride, leading plenty to agree when he called himself the best rapper alive. I was one of them. I still am. I think this era of Lil Wayne is the greatest rapper of all time in terms of actually rapping. That does not make this a perfect record though. With most if not all of the original joints recorded for his next album being leaked, the final retail version was created very quickly. But that’s how most of Wayne’s material was being created at this point, and I think it actually makes the album feel a lot different. I also think this intro is long enough, so put your spaceships in hover, get a classic lighter flick in, and let’s dive into the mind of the martian with Weezy’s 2008 classic, Tha Carter III.
As always, these are just MY opinions and do not reflect the views of TDN as a staff, brand or a m***********g crew. Feel free to crucify me on Twitter @plzsaythebento. Iight, let’s get to it.
1. 3 Peat - THEY CAN’T STOP ME, EVEN IF THEY STOPPED ME! You know that thing I do where I start my song entry with a lyric? This album is a perfect example of why I do that and I could effectively do that for every song. Wayne at this time was a walking quotable. This is 2008, nobody was rapping like this. He sounds unhinged, making the same word or phrase rhyme with itself with an incredible confidence and swagger. This is how Wayne is able to do joints like this with no hook. Wayne’s voice bends like he’s expecting auto-tune and it makes him sound like a maniacal supervillain. He rhymes about whatever he wants with such conviction that he really kidnaps you into his thought process. With snippets of his rags to riches story sprinkled in throughout in references to his mother, you’ve got to love this point that the greatest kid rapper of all time had gotten to.
2. Mr. Carter (featuring JAY Z) - WINTER HATING ON ME ‘CAUSE I’M COLDER THAN Y’ALL, AND I WILL NEVER I WILL NEVER I WILL NEVER FALL. This joint is the coronation. This is a real pure post-Kanye West hip-hop beat, and still feels like it could’ve fit on a Wayne tape. The piano reminds you of childhood, thinking of how far the still young Lil Wayne has come. The bassline slides around and an organ enters with some horns to give it a sense of grandiose. The coincidence of Wayne & Hov sharing a last name makes perfect sense for this torch pass. Jay doesn’t even wait until his verse to let you know he’s here, with an epic “YOUNG!” serving as the intro to his hook. Hov flows so effortlessly on this, while Wayne feels like his spitting for his life. Everything about this feels like it’s Wayne succeeding Hov as the GOAT. At least for this moment. You can argue who had the better verse, but it doesn’t matter. That’s exactly why Wayne comes in after Hov with no drums and even ends it with a reference to “Lucky Me”.
3. A Milli - TOUGHER THAN NIGERIAN HAIR. This man was really out of here. This is pure rapping for the love it. “A Milli” is such a pure MC record that everybody with two lungs had an “A Milli” remix. Your grandmother had an “A Milli” remix. And still the song never got an official remix, DJ’s just went crazy with the original version and occasionally through a remix in for a transition or something. What a time to be alive. You can’t take away from how hypnotizing the beat is. Everybody was tapping Bangladesh after this. Wayne even tried to do this again with “6 Foot 7 Foot”, but this really was lightning in a bottle. This might be the biggest a record without a hook has ever gotten (yell at me on Twitter about how I’m wrong, but I honestly can’t think of another one that got THIS BIG). It worked because Wayne was really rapping his ass off. You didn’t know what flow, rhyme, or even cadence you would get at any moment. It’s effortless.
4. Got Money (featuring T-Pain) - YOUNG WAYNE ON THEM HOES, AKA MR. MAKE IT RAIN ON THE HOES! You couldn’t get any bigger than these two in 2008. The whole opening of this record still makes me feel like the first time I heard it. When Wayne said “Young Mula baby” on this intro he became the greatest singer in the world for two whole seconds on accident. Wayne’s half natural, half auto-tuned first verse really shows how incredible his voice is. The “my goons are right here” bar was him becoming the greatest singer in the world for like four seconds. Stevie Wonder had 24 hours to respond and didn’t drop nothing. Honestly T-Pain was on an incredible hook run but it wasn’t even close to the most memorable thing about this song and that’s saying something about 2008 Lil Wayne.
5. Comfortable (featuring Babyface) - IF YOU WANNA LEAVE, BE MY GUEST, YOU COULD STEP. Wish we got more Wayne x Kanye collabs. And Babyface of all people on the hook? This is a flex only someone as big as Wayne could pull off at this time. “I will never 1-2-3-forget” was one of the first times I remember a song lyric took over social media. Every girl in my school with a Sidekick had this in their away message on AIM (pronounced aim, not aye I em, you uncultured swine). But yeah this is the Wayne love song which was never really Wayne’s best pocket but this is produced by Kanye and has Babyface on the hook, let this sink in. Wayne’s gonna Wayne on this, and you’re gonna love it. Deal with it.
6. Dr. Carter - WELCOME BACK HIP-HOP, I SAVED YOUR LIFE. What a concept. The metaphor is taken all over the place as Lil Wayne breaks down what makes an MC an MC. This is an experience you’ve got to truly listen all the way through to understand just how well this concept is executed. Around this time the notion that “hip-hop is dead” was all over the place, and Lil Wayne definitely had his fair share of critics. “He can never stay on subject.” “He doesn’t rap about anything” “He just rhymes the same word” etc. This is the exact type of record that those same critics could never deny. From the laid back, jazzy production that gradually gets grander, to Lil Wayne’s unorthodox, almost pimp-like delivery this is one of Wayne’s best concept songs of all time. Wayne isn’t known for his concept songs, but this concept song is known for Lil Wayne.
7. Phone Home - WE ARE NOT THE SAME, I AM A MARTIAN. Another concept expanded into a whole record. This one has less meat on it, but with Wayne’s martian references being in damn near every verse it made sense that Wayne would make a whole record out of it. With the alien sounding synths and piano loops, this really feels like alien rap. The martian thing is one of those nicknames that actually perfectly fits the artist to the point where you wonder if they adapted their style to the name or picked a name to match the style. Wayne bends his vocal chords all over the place. “Rare like Mr. Clean with hair. No brake lights on my car-rear.” This isn’t the standout record it once was, and feels like one of the songs Wayne made after the leak for sure. But it still feels like it belongs.
8. Tie My Hands (featuring Robin Thicke) - I LOST EVERYTHING, BUT I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE. I’m not a Robin Thicke fan but he brought Wayne into some interesting spaces in this era. Similar to “Shooter” off of the previous Carter project, Wayne reflects on his place in the South as a native of the Katrina-stricken New Orleans. In fact, I never really put this together but a key factor in Wayne’s legendary mixtape run was his pronounced drug abuse. It was probably to help him cope with the pain of surviving a national disaster attacking your home. That drug use left him completely unhinged as a rapper, trying new voices, pronunciations, cadences, rhythms, rhyme patterns, ad libs, melodies… basically everything that made him sound like the Lil Wayne we grew to know at the end of the 2000’s. And that’s what makes records like this interesting, the type of record where you can tell he just slowed down, smoked some weed, and reflected. The slower, less energetic Wayne records really have a magic to them. You feel Wayne’s pain, and given his recent opening up about mental illness it’s hard not to see just how hard he was working to escape that pain. While most rappers that records like this have influenced (I can think of XXXtentacion, Polo G and Young Thug off top) typically talk about escaping pain in terms of escaping poverty and the streets, escaping the pain means numbing yourself from the survivor’s guilt and loss that comes with the aftermath of a Hurricane as big as Katrina was. Facing that very pain leads Wayne to some of his most emotional moments like “take away the football team, the basketball team… now all we got is me to represent New Orleans. No governor no help from the mayor. Just a steady beating heart and a wish and a prayer.”
9. Mrs. Officer (featuring Bobby V & Kidd Kidd) - The sequencing of these two guitar songs is actually really dope even though the subject matter changes entirely. And honestly, today, this blue lives matter ass song feels kind of, off. But when it dropped that Bobby hook just hit different. I don’t think Wayne snapped on this one like he could’ve. The Rodney King line cringy as hell especially with how he repeats it with that shrieky voice that makes his autotune sound wild. Then you have a feature from Kidd Kidd, which honestly just sounds like a feature from Gudda Gudda. This shows Wayne’s influence even at the time. Really it’s the beat and Bobby that make this the hit it became. Tik Tok would eat this up today though. It’s not a bad song, but it’s definitely a time and place kind of record.
10. Let The Beat Build - I BEEN COUTNING DIRTY MONEY SINCE 12:30! It’s wild how few artists can actually pull off a record like this. The drop takes two minutes to get to. Then it’s “just a snare and a 808”. It’s like Wayne is talking to his band and walking the audience of a dive bar through his greatness. Then he just gets the 808 as he hits the killswitch. This definitely feels like another record he made after the leak but it also still feels like the primal mixtape Weezy. I wish the whole album was mixed this raw, Wayne just sounds better in mixtape form and the album’s polish is unfortunately why the record’s age hits you in the face at times. This is a great showcase of Wayne as an MC regardless.
11. Shoot Me Down (featuring D. Smith) - IF YOU LET ME, YOU WON’T REGRET ME. SH•T IF YOU LET ME, YOU WON’T FORGET ME. REMEMBER? AND IF NOT THEN PONDER. HOLD UP (BOW BOW) THERE’S A REMINDER. Rock music is a big part of what made Lil Wayne so great. Not many MC’s would feel so at home on an instrumental like this. Wayne’s rhyme schemes on records like this just go crazier than you’d even expect from 2008 Lil Wayne. “Let me do me & let me be great” is one of my favorite genres of Lil Wayne music. “I’m a do it AGGIN like N•••A BACKWARDS”. Freedom is what made Lil Wayne so great. He was an incredible rapper by traditional standards in the years leading up to this project, but once autotune invaded his mixtape catalog and he began experimenting with the way his music actually sounded, you could tell all he wanted to do was have fun doing what he loved. He never cared about anything else but enjoying himself, he lost everything in the hurricane and that pain is everlasting. Music was all he had and he was going to make this happy place of his into whatever he wanted it to be. This album is all over the place. The sequencing does it no favors. And it certainly isn’t Mixtape Weezy. I feel like we all know this. But when you’ve ascended as high as Lil Wayne, of course you’re going to want to try new things. See where you can take this wave, do what you want. Break all the rules. The proof is in the entire generation that followed.
12. Lollipop (featuring Static Major) - First of all, rest in peace to Static Major. Second of all, and for the second time, horrible sequencing. I know I literally just said it but this is exactly why. Now let’s be honest about this song real quick. It’s one of Wayne’s biggest hits and it’s nowhere near his best. We know this story already. But let’s not act like this wasn’t crazy when it dropped. This changed music forever. This basically created a few subgenres full of songs better than this one. That’s usually how trying something new goes, unless you’re Kanye West (more on that later). Jim Jonsin beats are truly a product of their time, but at the time this was what a hit sounded like, instrumentally. Wayne showed a lot of people that T-Pain sound could really have legs without T-Pain as long as you were willing to be interesting enough with your cadence. And Kanye… well you know what. Let’s just wait.
13. La La (featuring Brisco & Busta Rhymes) - STARTED OUT HUSTLING, ENDED UP BALLING. That was my damn Myspace layout, complete with Famous logos. This is Mixtape Weezy. I wish this beat just got Wayne on it. Kinda like Cannon. Brisco wasn’t whack but following Wayne is a tough act. This is why Wayne usually had the last verse on songs. Busta Rhymes fares a little better, of course, but at the end of the day this beat just don’t work for rappers that aren’t as unhinged as Wayne. Busta is asserting dominance over a xylophone and childrens voices. Wayne is just having fun. You can see why this style just works for Wayne. That said, Wayne already made a way better La La song, so this one was pretty much dead on arrival. I don’t think I’ve heard this song played outside of the context of this album. I really like Wayne and Busta together and feel like the chemistry is actually pretty untapped considering how crazy Busta can go. Busta would even the score a few years later on a Chris Brown record of all places, so at least we have that.
“You know what they say, when you great? It’s not murder, it’s assassinate.”
15. You Ain’t Got Nuthin (feat. Juelz Santana & Fabolous) - Wayne learned how to really rap from New York. His favorite rapper was Hov, he was adopted by Dipset, and he thrived on East Coast beats. That said, these two verses are the best rap features on the whole album. This one of the few instances where Wayne snapped and didn’t make me wish the song was just him. The beat even switches from New York to a Southern bounce for Wayne’s verse. Beat switches like this weren’t common at all in 2008. The Sega Genesis ass synth. This album should’ve been a lot more of this if it was going for the polish it ended up with. Don’t get it twisted this is not one of Wayne’s best collaborations, but it definitely screams Carter III and it’s hard to deny that Fab & Juelz held their own. One of the more memorable moments on the album even if it is very clearly a post-leak song.
16. DontGetIt - MISUNDERSTOOD DON’T GOTTA BE EXPLAINED, BUT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ME SO LET ME EXPLAIN. High and unbothered Wayne is the best Wayne. You’ve got to remember this man has been a famous rapper his entire life. This definitely feels like a record that survived the leak. Records like this made Wayne one of the leading voices for a generation, even if it was more for his overall vibe than the substance of his music. In fact, I’d argue that the outro of this record is the most memorable non-single moment from this entire album. Seven minutes of Wayne analyzing systemic racism. It’s crazy to see where he went politically after this, but again he’s been famous his entire life. Wayne is obviously from the hood but is fortunate enough to have left early enough to not be scarred by the circumstances of being Black in America as much as most of us. Yet he still managed to find time to break down inequalities and “misunderstandings” in this country. “We don’t have room in the jails now” for the real criminals, just for those of us like Wayne. Black. Tattoos. Dreadlocks. Weed smokers. Everybody who would basically cosplay as Lil Wayne in real life for the next decade. Wayne may or may not have been the best rapper ever, but his persona of an unbothered free spirit who just does what he loves with a childlike passion.
“Since I am human, I am both good and bad as well. But I try my hardest to stay good. And some of the things I do and say may be bad or just not too good. But I do try.”
17. Lollipop Remix (featuring Kanye West & Static Major) [Bonus Track] - TELL MY GIRL LIKE DORITOS THAT’S NOT YO CHEESE. Let’s talk about influence. Kanye made rappers use autotune for pain and melody. Wayne made rappers use autotune to fit in and change their voice. I think that’s why when people first started using autotune they had no idea how to actually sound good with it. Wayne didn’t adapt to autotune, he didn’t have to. It worked with his martian style naturally. This is the first instance of two rappers really trying to outrap each other with autotune. Think of how much that alone legitimized the sound. Wayne had the brand of being the guy to kill you on your own song, to the point that it was amazing Kanye came and did it to Wayne in such a self aware way. Kanye has always been about saying wild bars whether corny or actually funny. This makes him and Wayne in this era a perfect match. It really is a shame they didn’t work together as much. The two successors to JAY Z had a lot of untapped potential, which we can really see today in Drake and all of his sons, never mind everybody who directly followed Wayne & Ye.
18. Prostitute 2 [Bonus Track] - I’ve never known anybody to play this over the original version. Them sessions just had a different energy. Go listen to that instead. Mixtape Weezy really just was different. This has that energy but the fact that the original is so easy to find now with the internet defeats the whole purpose of this even being created. Again, skipping this track. I think that says enough about just how important this era of Wayne is more than this project specifically. That doesn’t make it not a classic though. A million in the first week in this time really said something.
Let me remind you that this was after all of Wayne’s music got leaked and he went back to create a new album. The fact that it still turned out this great is incredible. But you could still tell Wayne was starting to get ADHD when it came to just rapping good. He was the best and he wanted to show it off and try so many different things. But this album really ended up showing the importance of sequencing. With so many different styles on this project, they should’ve been kept together. There’s no reason the rock joints aren’t back to back. The ladies joints. The concept songs. The bangers. But with all that said, this is still the most important commercial release for what could be considered the GOAT. In fact, I still do even all these years later. Music is peak escapism. Even at its most realistic, it helps to feel a good record and not be exactly where you are when you’re listening to it. It’s really a high. And when you’re creating music from as high as Wayne is, it’s kind of incredible he makes as much sense as he does on this record. This marked the transition from underground MC in love with the craft to bonafide mega popstar who doesn’t afraid of anything (editor’s note, typo intended). Wayne broke all of the rules and now there are so many subgenres created in the wake of his image, it’s hard to say he’s not the most influential rapper of all time. Like 2Pac did with Gangsta Rap before him, Weezy injected a real freedom into not just hip-hop but Black music at large. You could combine any of your influences after Wayne, especially after this project. You could be whatever kind of rapper you wanted to be and as long as you had the authenticity and skill. The problem at the time was that everybody who looked up to Wayne didn’t have the skill but like it took Wayne time to get to C3, it took the game a while to catch up to his influence. And now that he’s back killing features all these years later it’s clear… there will never be another Lil Wayne.