![]() To me, it’s just not the best of the series, it’s his best body of work, period. Like several attempts at recapturing what happened with “Shooter.” For my tastes, it needed more “Let the Beat Build” and “Shoot Me Down” and “La La.” Maybe that wouldn’t have sold as much.ĭee: I rock with Tha Carter II. Officer,” “Comfortable,” “Tie My Hands,” and even “Got Money,” as hard as that one goes, always felt like an insurance policy. Wayne packing the album out with radio rap like “Mrs. You can catch the original spirit if you squint, but the product is more streamlined than the property deserved. The difference between what went in and what came out is like Fox taking bleak, weird X-Men stories and turning them into popcorn movies. the leak is what did it in for you?Ĭraig: Carter III did arrive at the crest of a wave, but it always felt like concessions were made in order to grow dividends. Do you feel like the seriousness of the final product vs. It was the Wayne album people were waiting for so we got all-time great posse cuts like “You Ain’t Got Nuthin” and “A Milli” which ended up changing the sound of rap entirely. It also arrived at the peak of Wayne’s fame. It certainly seemed like Wayne was able to translate some of the manic energy of his mixtapes there. Sam: Tha Carter IIIis not my favorite, but it’s a close second. C3 as it exists now isn’t nearly as fun or funny. “Diamonds and Girls” outdoes the incredible Cam’ron song that also flipped Prince’s “Diamonds and Pearls.” There’s solid boom bap like “La La La” and based madness like “I Feel Like Dying.” The range is incredible. (There’s a palpable jock jam quality to the first two Carter projects that keeps me away.) The OG Carter III had outrageous sample chops: “Help” is the best use of a Beatle in a rap song this side of … It’s just the best one, period. The finished album came out too mannered and sporty for my tastes. The Drought Is Over 2 for you Datpiff heads.) It seemed like what Wayne was going for with that album is carrying the insane spirit of the Drought and Dedication tapes into more polished studio recordings. So much of his catalogue is buried in expired Mediafire links or scattered amongst unofficial DatPiff tapes, it looks like the way time will evaluate Wayne is through these albums.Ĭraig: I’m gonna get technical and say that my favorite Carter is the version of Tha Carter III that leaked in advance of the album we now know as Tha Carter III. It almost doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Sam: If we’re operating under that assumption - that his albums are stiffer “final products” and the tapes are wilder - it’s pretty safe to say that Wayne works best when he’s not trying overtly to do something specific or to make any point larger than “I’m a better rapper than everyone else.” Much like how he kept telling everyone he was the greatest rapper alive until people actually started to believe it, it’s as if he positioned his Carter albums as the must-listens in his collection by sheer force of will. To me, that makes the “albums” a little stiff and the tapes sorta wild. He still conceptualizes rap as a binary where mixtapes and albums exist as separate entities, which makes sense since he had a hand in building the distinction. Wayne’s Carter albums are the ones he stakes his reputation and well-being on, the formal events the mixtapes feel like dress rehearsals for. LIL WAYNE THE CARTER 1 ALBUM CRACKIn New Jack City, “the Carter” was a crack factory fashioned out of a Harlem apartment complex, the cornerstone of Nino Brown’s business, essentially. My impression was always that he used his mixtapes as a testing ground for different flows, and weirder lyrics, and whatever worked for him would end up on one of those Carter albums.Ĭraig Jenkins: I think the answer to the question is in the name. LIL WAYNE THE CARTER 1 ALBUM SERIESIf I had to get inside the mind of the Martian, I’d say the Carter series exists for whenever Wayne feels like acknowledging the commercial side of rap just so he can say he did it and still can do it, or so I would assume is the point of Tha Carter V. What does the Carter series mean in the context of Lil Wayne’s entire discography? Is he trying to do something specific with those albums? Does he succeed?ĭee Lockett: Well. ![]() They’re home to the most famous version of Wayne - the Wayne who gave us “A Milli” and “Got Money” and “Go DJ.” But what can looking back at the previous four installments tell us about Wayne as an artist? About how he’s evolved, and what his entire career means? Vulture editors Sam Hockley-Smith and Dee Lockett got together with Vulture music critic Craig Jenkins to discuss. Wayne is no stranger to album sequels, but his Carter records occupy a specific place in his staggering discography: they’re the big budget albums that draw in all of his wild mixtapes experiments. After years of delays, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter V is finally out.
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