C5 makes as strong of a play of it as could be expected. The unspoken task of the Carter albums is to present Wayne not just as a jack-of-all-trades but a master of each one. Overkill is Wayne’s sharpest weapon, and Carter V is one of few movie-length rap releases this year that justifies stretching beyond the 80-minute mark.
A decade ago, a flurry of insane, indomitable mixtapes and guest spots carried him from the arrogant young veteran prematurely proclaiming himself “Best Rapper Alive” on Tha Carter II to a technician stealing tracks out from under established rap heroes on projects like 2007’s seminal Da Drought 3.
There’s sex jokes and cartoon violence in the middle of the reverent, reflective “Took His Time” and snot gags in the solemn daddy-daughter duet “Famous.” Wayne is one of the architects of modern hip-hop’s manic sprawl. The magic of Lil Wayne in shipshape is that Tha Carter V can be a document of hardships and also a laugh riot, sometimes in the stretch of the same verse. C5 examines Wayne’s triumphs and tragedies with uncommon candor, lighting the way for anyone else who feels like hope is dimming. Carter’s tears and Wayne’s own verses about acquaintances turning on him and strangers thirsting for an end to his reign suggest that staying prolific and positive is a tough task. British singer Sampha intones the title of the track in the background like wisdom gleaned from a timeworn sample. This isn’t nearly the first telling - see: Solange’s “Mad” - but this time, Wayne approaches it the way a preacher recites the gospel, teeming with the light of glory snatched from the darkest despair. Twenty-two tracks after “I Love You Dwayne” kicks C5 off with a somber prayer from Wayne’s mother Jacida Carter, the closer “Let It All Work Out” luridly recounts the story of the day a 12-year-old Dwayne got his hands on his mother’s pistol and nearly ended it all. The most anticipated rap album of this half of the decade opens and closes with a mother’s tears. Beneath the dizzying wordplay and the ghoulish gallows humor, Tha Carter V is an album about perseverance, about securing and defending prosperity no matter the cost. Detractors don’t disappear when you’re on the right path. Sadness doesn’t care what your bona fides are. But the diminutive rap dynamo born Dwayne Carter still seems haunted.
The lengthy legal proceedings that tied the album up for the last four years are over, and Wayne is rapping with the bullish bluster of someone who has rediscovered his purpose.
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Wayne’s Tha Carter V, the latest installment in the Louisiana rapper’s running series of epochal blockbuster studio albums, should be a celebration, and it often is. The reign was never a cakewalk it’s possible to live your dreams and still be racked with adversity and doubt. Lil Wayne is one of the most successful rappers of all time by any measure, a mercurial once-in-a-lifetime talent who found his calling before he hit puberty and has been a public figure since he was a teenager.
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