“Weezy F. Baby and the F stands for finally.”
After years of legal battles over the future of his music career, Lil Wayne is finally a free man. With his label Young Money Entertainment firmly in his hands, he is now free to release his long-awaited album, The Carter 5. Completed for sometime now, Weezy released the album the day after his birthday. But with the short attention span most music fans have today, will C5 be able to stand the test of time?
23-tracks deep, Weezy enlists the likes of Travis Scott, Snoop Dogg, Swizz Beatz, Nicki Minaj, Ashanti and more to join on his triumphant return to music.
The album opens with a poignant and powerful speech delivered by his mother called, “I Love You D’Wayne”. From there, Weezy F. takes over. The flashy Wayne we heard on the previous installments is absent for the most part this round. 5-years old and much more wiser, Wayne gives us a deeper look into his personal life.
This album can take the listener on an emotional roller-coaster. Tracks like “Don’t Cry” featuring XXXtentacion, “Can’t Be Broken”, “Demons” “Dedicate” and “What About Me” featuring Sosamann introduces listeners to a Wayne who is honest and regretful about his past mistakes.
Addiction is a prevalent topic throughout the album.The theme of “women, money, drugs and power” come off more as a pitfall this round and less like the spoils that come with being the best rapper alive like we’ve heard in the past.
It’s not all a therapy session. The album does give old Weezy feels. “Dope Niggaz” featuring Snoop Dogg, “Let It Fly” featuring Travis Scott, “Start this Shit” with Mack Mane and Ashanti will take you back to the mixtape Weezy.
With over 20 tracks, the album was bound to hit some low-points. The Swizz Beatz collab, “Uproar” comes off stale as Wayne rhymes over a flip G-Deep’s “Special Delivery”. “Dark Side of the Moon” with Nicki Minaj is an attempt at being a pop cross-over, but falls short of being anything other than a song that should get skipped immediately.
Wayne’s strength has always been his penchant to take over a song on his own. That is still his strong-point. The tracks that feature big name acts often stumble over themselves. When Wayne goes solo, he morphs back into the Weezy we all came to love.
The Carter 5 is a solid project and die-hard fans will do their best to push this to the top of the Billboard charts. Overall, the album is un-even. It’s great that we finally got the album we have been waiting on since 2013. Now lets hope the next project from Wayne brings us more Wayne and less Wayne and Friends.
Stand-out tracks: “Mona Lisa” featuring Kendrick Lamar, “Dedicated”, “Open Letter”, “Perfect Strangers”.
