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Pete Hunt is still trying to figure out a justification for posting a link to Celly Cel & UGKâs âPop the Trunkâ on LinkedIn.
Thereâs no shortage of retrospective pieces about Lil Wayneâs artistic apex (roughly Carter IÂ to No Ceilings, spanning 2004 to 2009) and the incredible volume of music that accompanied it. We know Weezy. We know he is one-of-one, that in the four-year career swell that defined Wayne, he reinvented the mixtape as a medium of expression. POWâs Abe Beame even wrote 4,500+ word exegesis on how Wayne forever changed the mixtape.
The internet is flush with pieces tackling Wayneâs music, but not the discourse surrounding his music. Remember: Lil Wayneâs creative peak coincided with the Golden Age of the Internet, a time when being online felt fun, especially if you were into music, culture, and Gawker comment sections. Lina Abascalâs excellent book on bloghouse, Never Be Alone Again, describes how the lawless uploads and downloads of this era led to music discovery shifting irrevocably onlineâprecisely where the best parts of Lil Wayneâs discography resided.
From the beginning, Lil Wayne was closely linked to the music blogosphereâs nexus of writers, promoters, producers, and what we now call âcontent creators.â Posts from these tastemakers were all part of a listener journey that gently nudged users towards Nah Rightâs Drought 3 download page. There was also plenty of coverage outside of blog rolls. Prestige print publications deployed their best talent to document the mixtape phenomenon with profiles, listicles, and parachute journalism from the frontlines of internet culture.
The reason so many music writers were enraptured with Wayne was that his wordplay demonstrated a literary wit. He was funny without forcing punchlines, playful without veering into parody. There was always an element of pleasant surprise with how a stanza might resolve itself. With mixtape Wayne, you knew the alchemic verses you were hearing were manifested on the spot, because nothing written could ever feel so effortlessly improvisational. (See: âI donât write, I get high and ignite.â)
Coinciding with the release of Carter VI, Iâve compiled my favorite Lil Wayne content from the blog era. I opened the aperture as wide as possible to capture anything and everything that seemed relevant, from memorable album reviews to proto-podcast episodes to tasteful mashups. If it was on the internet and worthy of inclusion, youâll find it here.
Tom Breihanâs Status Ainât Hood column at the Village Voice was one of the first bookmark-worthy music blogs, especially if you were a fan of street rap mixtapes and âPitbull is better than Nasâ hot takes. I read his output obsessively and specifically recall Tomâs prescient hype for Carter II-era Wayne, like this post from 2005:
[I]t would take a global apocalypse at the very least to make Lil Wayne the best rapper alive. But Iâve been finding myself looking forward to his guest verses more and more, especially after he annihilated Paul Wall with his insanely cold verse on the latterâs âMarch Now Stepâ (âIâm so New Orleans that I canât hide / You know Iâm cutting something; Iâm spitting pe-rox-ideâ). [âŠ] His flow reminds me of a smarmy kindergarten teacher leading a classroom singalong of âOld McDonaldâ; it has a condescendingly patient smarminess, like he doesnât mind taking the time explaining things that youâre too dumb to figure out yourself but heâs going to have some fun with you while he does this. His voice was always a naturally croaky high-pitched moan, but heâs learned how to toy around with it. I love this guy.
The post later references Wayneâs then-recent appearance on the cover of XXL, so it wasnât like Status Ainât Hood was the only outlet promoting the guyâbut this was definitely early praise from the blog roll crowd.
Status Ainât Hood was also one of the first music podcasts I listened to, and this was at a time when most âpodcastsâ were audio files you downloaded and then imported into iTunes. The episode about Mary J. Bligeâs âJust Fineâ remix from 2007 stands out because (a) this particular version of the song (with rapper Precise leading off) is not on any streaming services, (b) Tom exudes complete enthusiasm for Wayneâs exceptional guest verse, and (c) the next segment about Usherâs âLove in the Clubâ is also excellent.
Much of the Village Voiceâs online content has disappeared, including, as far as I can tell, every episode of the Status Ainât Hood podcast. I uploaded the YouTube clip above from an old mp3 file. Save everything, kids! The internet is dying.
âDo you have the mix tapes?â asked Michael, a sixteen-year-old ninth grader. âItâs all about the mix tapes.â
The following day, he had a stack of CDs for me. Version this, volume that, or no label at all.
And thatâs just about all I listened to for the rest of the year.
David Ramsey spent a year teaching in post-Katrina New Orleans while obsessively listening to Lil Wayne, and then wrote this beautiful essay about the experience for Oxford American. The piece is structured as a mixtape with 25 snapshot vignettes that collectively capture the authorâs relationship with his students and their music, culture, and community. If you were attuned to Lil Wayne discourse in 2008, you almost certainly encountered this essay, which predictably ended up in De Capoâs annual Best Music Writing compilation.
The blog era is closely associated with mixtapesâthink LiveLoveA$AP, A Kid Named Cudi, every We Got it 4 Cheap installmentâbut many of my favorite tracks from that period are total one-offs. Case in point: mysterious Swedish duo jjâs âmy way,â a b-side mp3 released ahead of the groupâs third album, 2010âs nÂș 3.
This is a definitive âonly in the blog eraâ relic, as it brilliantly melds a Balearic groove with jj singer Elin Kastlanderâs Ambien-infused vocals, and then tosses in Lil Wayneâs opening verse from Trinaâs âDonât Tripâ and.. an unhinged Charlie Manson interview sample? There was no way this was going to get cleared for a proper album release, but it did numbers on Hype Machine.
Another winner: the TOKiMONSTA remix of âA Milli,â which filters Wayneâs vocals through a star cruiserâs deep space navigation system.
Today Sean Fennessey is an omnipresent personality across the Ringer podcast empire, popping up to opine about everything from the Criterion Closet to the Mikal Bridges contract to your least favorite Van Damme rewatchable. Flashback two decades, though, and dude had his ear to the streets compiling the greatest listicle of all time: Vibeâs guide to the 77 best Lil Wayne songs of 2007.
Hereâs the setup:
This year Wayne has hit his stride, releasing an almost unfathomable amount of music. It seems that every morning a new mixtape, freestyle, or feature has popped onto the Web, turning the mediocre meanderings of any number of artists into must-listens. Wayne does so easily, without ceremony over his craft or attitudinal tics â just a trust in his wildly malleable croak, a voice that has become unparalleled in recognizability, and an odd fascination with the absurd. Wayne calls himself an alien, raps in French, sings from his knees, plays guitar (badly), and records endlessly. Because he knows this is his moment. He is what he says he is: The Best Rapper Alive. Hear, hear!
What follows is a prime selection of mixtape Weezy, including every gem on Dedication 3 and plenty of Carter III outtakes. Nobody wants to hear this, but the Ja Rule collaboration âUh Ohâ is accurately ranked at number eleven. Wayneâs nursery rhyme-like delivery of âI will step on your building from the steps of my buildingâ has been wedged in my head for the better part of two decades.
Sasha Frere-Jones was a patron saint of poptimism during the aughts, and his tenure as the New Yorkerâs music critic included memorable profiles of artists like Robyn and The-Dream, live concert reviews of Britney Spears, and early praise for experimental innovators like Flying Lotus. He also penned the famous âPaler Shade of Whiteâ essay about the distinct lack of soul in modern indie rock, which seemingly guilt-tripped Arcade Fire into recording Reflektor. (Devendra Banhart, alas, did not take his advice about borrowing R. Kellyâs vocal stylings.)
It felt important, then, when Frere-Jones turned his critical gaze to Dwayne Carter at the height of his pre-Carter III hype. The piece, naturally, included a comparison to Zimbo:
In four years, Lil Wayne has evolved from a fairly predictable Southern gangsta rapper into an artist who may actually deserve the bragging rights to âbest rapper alive,â his current motto. His raspy, pixillated croak is as distinctive as Bob Dylanâs piercing Klaxon whine, and his music conveys the same sense of headlong propulsion that Dylanâs did in 1965. (Lil Wayneâs subject matterâdrugs, women, and gunplayâis more typical of the blues songs that Dylan idolized than of Dylanâs own material.)
The profile concludes with a snapshot of Wayneâs recent concert at New Yorkâs Beacon Theatre. It was right after this show, unfortunately, that NY police boarded Wayneâs tour bus and arrested him for possession of an unlicensed handgun. That charge eventually resulted in his eight-month incarceration at Rikers Island.
This isnât quite a top-tier Nardwuar interview (think N.E.R.D or Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls), but itâs got all the quintessential elements: a barrage of extensively researched questions, a grab bag of âwhereâd you find this?â gifts, a game-to-play-along interviewee, and presumably a publicist grinding their teeth just off camera. Over 12 minutes, Nard asks Wayne to âtell the peopleâ about the following:
A Cheech & Chong vinyl record with rolling papers insert (a Nardwuar staple)
A Nirvana concert poster + Taking Punk to the Masses book
A Pimp Daddy Still Pimpinâ cassette from 1994
A King Lee! Tire Shop album recorded in the 9th Ward
Gregory D & DJ Mannie Freshâs Throw Down album from 1987
The Showboys Drag Rap vinyl from 1986?
Rap Snacks potato chips
Wayneâs responses are punchy monologues that perfectly capture his relationship to the object and his encyclopedic knowledge of New Orleans rap. You learn more about the significance of the Triggerman beat in this interview than you would in a hundred Wikipedia or AllMusic deep dives.
Robert Christgau: journalist, essayist, âDean of American Rock Critics,â confirmed Lil Wayne stan.
Christgauâs GeoCities-seque âConsumer Guideâ website includes largely positive reviews for 18 Wayne albums, beginning with 1999âs Tha Block is Hot (âtough-guyisms so steeped in convention they disappear into the bounceâ) and continuing through 2023âs Tha Fix Before Tha VI mixtape (â[A]lthough I understand why rhyming âesophagusâ with âmisogynistâ and suggesting that his pubic hair can double as dental floss arenât tropes likely to impress the few if any feminists who value his artistic gifts, in a grab bag like this theyâre evidence of his continuing if intermittent creative vitality.â)
The review that stands out to me, though, is his Da Drought 3 encomium, in which he crowns Wayne the âbest rapper alive,â praises his absurdist sense of humor and malleable approach to rhyming, and grapples with the very 2007 challenge of critically appraising a double-CD mixtape that âI now possess in two-and-a-half slightly different versions.â
(Also worth noting that Cristagau alone among critics recognized that 2020âs Funeral was Wayneâs âbest [work] since No Ceilings.â Heâs right. Go listen to âMama Miaâ pronto.)
Rolling Stoneâs Mark Benelli and GQâs Dave Friedman both profiled Lil Wayne in 2009 in the wake of Carter IIIâs blockbuster success, and both pieces are unsurprisingly excellent. Benelli captures a âhermetically sealedâ bubble around the rapper and his entourage as he records Rebirth in a haze of weed smoke and nu-metal guitars. (â[T]he genre of rock Wayne happens to be emulating is a pretty awful one.â) SportsCenter is always on a widescreen television. Girls are always waiting in the wings. And Wayneâs every whim is catered to so that his artistic impulses can proceed unfettered.
Friedman is given far less access, but describes the same marathon studio sessions and copious drug usage. He gives special attention to the assorted handlers and assistants tasked with managing Wayneâs madness, which veers from endearing to menacing. âThe only thing he really wants his money for is to be carried through life on a virtual sedan chair so he doesnât have to do anything other than pursue his creative state,â Friedman writes. âBut the world tends to resist. The smoother he engineers things, the more slight his tolerance for turbulence becomes.â
The Terry Richardson photos from the GQ piece are also fantastic. Richardson was a deplorable creep, granted, but the dude was a talentedâif kind of one-noteâphotographer, and his shot of a shirtless Wayne with his eyes closed, inhaling a joint, finger gun to the side of the head is the definitive portrait of the artist as a young hedonist.
I remember listening to âI Feel Like Dyingâ in a haze late at night and feeling that I had developed a singular aesthetic and intellectual appreciation for Wayneâs work. Then I found Cokemachineglowâs review of Tha Carter III Mixtape. Over a breezy 1,400-word dialectic, Dom Sinacola perfectly resolves the contradictions between mixtape Weezy and album Weezy before going off on a tangent about John Stuart Mill, Mack Maine, and utilitarianism. I was both awed and embarrassed because it was clear my own fandom was unrefined.
This wasnât a one-off essay, either. You can dig through the beloved music siteâs archives and see that their bullpen of hungry grad students applied a methodologically sound mixture of historical materialism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Moreyball-era advanced analytics to every major Lil Wayne release from Dedication 3 to Carter IV.
The Hood Internet was a project from Chicago producers Steve Reidell and Aaron Brink. The duoâs mp3 blog featured mashup songs and mixtapes that blended vocals from flavor-of-the-moment rap songs over Urban Outfitters-approved indie, dance, and electronic tracks, so think âDougie Visionâ (Cali Swag Districtâs âTeach Me How to Dougieâ over Toro Y Moiâs âThanks Visionâ) and âGo Hahahahaâ (Das Racistâs âHahahaha Jkâ over The Cultâs âGo Outsideâ).
Letâs concede up front that the quality of these pairings varied, and there were plenty of combos that felt forced (âIgnition (1901 Remix)â) or cringe (âJust Wanna Dance Yrself Cleanâ). But the best Hood Internet tracks cleverly fused the strengths of the source material into something fun and fresh. Case in point: âStuntinâ Like Black Rock,â which brought Birdman and Wayneâs decadent braggadocio into orbit around Blackrockâs 1972 garage rock gem âYeah, Yeah.â
Reidell and Brink chop up the instrumental so much that itâs not a 1:1 âmashupâ in the traditional sense (think âStroke of Genie-usâ)âitâs more like a sample-heavy remix. Thereâs a level of craftsmanship here you didnât always find in the blog era: Note the little piano build-up from 1:10 to 1:17, the beat fade at 3:38, the percussive vocal stabs throughout the verses.
Now compare this track with Girl Talkâs lazy ass treatment of the same âStuntinââ material on Feed the Animals, the most front-to-back garbage album of the aughts. At no point does the Wayne a cappella remotely align with Edwin Starrâs âWar,â âSinĂ©ad OâConnorâs âNothing Compares 2 U,â or whatever other classic rock radio shit Greg Gillis tries to cram in there. (If any music publication wants to ârescoreâ their Feed the Animals review, Pitchfork-style, Iâm willing & eager to do the take down.)
He takes the stage clad in a black turtleneck. His famous line is, âGreen is the new red, white, and blue.â Tonight, and other nights, he is paid tens of thousands of dollars to perform. He spent a year touring America, adding China for good measure. When he returns home, he lands in an 11,400-square-foot house.
Heâs not a rock star, although his life resembles that of one. He is Thomas Friedman, author, newspaperman, star commenter.
So begins a Columbia Journalism Review article that could only have been written in 2008. The author posits that journalists seeking Friedmanâą levels of fame should borrow promotional tricks from rock star musicians.
Lil Wayneâs mixtape success, for instance, embodies the âFree Culture Methodâ that writers should emulate by â[giving] away original material on their blogs.â
Conversely, struggling journalists could adopt Kid Rockâs âAtavist Strategyâ and ignore digital content altogether. Instead, focus on building audiences who âare not used to going on the Internet, at least for now, but do go to Wal-Mart.â
No matter which route you choose, the author encourages you to at least pretend to have an âinteresting [personality]â and act a little âlarger than life.â
Kyle Kramer already wrote 800+ perfect words about this freestyle for Vice back in 2017 as part of his one-man âYear of Lil Wayneâ series, which anyone whoâs made it this far into this article should absolutely check out. Let me just note that, (a) like all great Rap City freestyles, the theatrical elements elevate the performance as much as the bars, and (b) the instrumental (Collie Buddzâs âCome Aroundâ) is an awkward fit, but itâs interesting to hear how Wayne adjusts his delivery to make it work.
You also have to remember that while YouTube now feels like the infrastructure of the internet, back in the day it seemed remarkable that someone would record a Rap City freestyle and upload it to this weird video site where it could be disseminated and dissected.
Carter III was a commercial triumph, moving more than one million copies in its first week on its way to becoming the best-selling album of 2008. But mixtape obsessives werenât happy. Outside of choice bars on âA Milli,â âYou Ainât Got Nuthin,â and maybe two other cuts, there was nothing here that captured the manic energy and improvisational genius of that magic Dedication to Drought 3 run.
The music that followed was even worse: Autotuned guest verses on Top 40 pop hits (may we never hear âand honestly, Iâm down like the economyâ again), assorted Young Money features, and the underwhelming Dedication 3. The creative well seemed dry, and the artist seemed distractedâunderstandably so, given that he was facing the aforementioned prison bid on a gun possession charge.
The blogerati, meanwhile, had moved on to Freddie Gibbs, Curren$y, and Lil B.
And then No Ceilings dropped on October 31, 2009, and everything was right in the world again. This was Godhead âI am the beastâ Wayne, vibrating on some divine frequency / prescription-grade Codeine and ethering other rappersâ beats with virtuosic displays of wit (âLock the CEO up; and Iâm the CEOâfuckâ), humor (âshe ride my dick like she cycling / then she canât walk, run, or jump like white menâ), and flow (the entirely of âSwag Surfâ).
Even the Nah Right comment section critics seemed convinced:
âThis will restore the lost faith in Weezy and hopefully itâll be enough for me to forgive him for those Rebirth tracksâ
âI am NOT a wayne stanâŠBUT THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE?â
âlol at this dude throwing shots at hov 6 years laterâ
âGotta respect this guyâs work ethicâ
Well, not all of them:
âThat âI gotta feelingâ track can fuck right off though
Alas, the creative force that animated No Ceilings seemed to dissipate durin Wayneâs stretch behind bars, and it took several years and numerous terrible albums before the spirit revived. (I donât know if youâve tried to listen to Carter IV lately, but outside of the lasagna joke itâs truly awful.) Nothing, though, can detract from the brilliance of No Ceilings, a worthy coda to an unprecedented period of artistic vitality.
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