One year after hurricane Katrina, and Kanye's moment of outspoken honesty during a benefit for Louisiana, some may have expected a radicalized message from New Orleans' favored son. And together, Wayne and Birdman crafted Like Father, Like Son, which was an escape from any assertion of high-mindedness. Birdman called himself a "game spitter," rather than a rapper, in case anyone was concerned he had pretensions about his own art. With Tha Carter series, Wayne was starting to be seen as an exceptional exception, with wordplay underlined by his delivery and ambitious proclamations of greatness.īut then, rather than following up Tha Carter II with something to validate his claims to the throne, came this duo-driven side project with his label boss Bryan Williams (a.k.a. With snap music as a bouncy, irreverent backdrop, Southern hip-hop was derided as short-witted and disposable an embarrassment to a generation of artists who'd worked years to get people to view hip-hop as a serious art form. Over squealing guitars, Wayne declared he was the "best rapper alive," and even slow-moving New York media began to take this claim seriously. After Tha Carter announced Lil Wayne's arrival as a talent worthy of serious consideration, its sequel threw down the gauntlet. It’s an example of how hip-hop can be just as vibrant in its moments of consolidation-of familiarity and coherence-as it is when it challenges listeners, even if it's those radical moments that get the attention.Īlthough it did spark a Top 40 hit with "Stuntin’ Like My Daddy," the overall response to Like Father, Like Son was muted, selling considerably less in its first week than 2005's Tha Carter II. There's a strong argument it's Wayne's most underrated release. Yet it remains one of the highlights of his massive catalog, a peak in a career with plenty of competition. It neither validated him to a new audience, nor did it break down doors for a new generation.
2006, arriving between those two revolutions. Like Father, Like Son, his collaborative album with Birdman, dropped in Oct. The experimental era of Da Drought 3 found Wayne pushing up against the boundaries of songcraft, and the freedom he achieved inspired generations of new stars to let loose from rap's traditional vocal constraints. A few years later, his approach shifted again, his delivery becoming more eccentric. This new deliberate cadence drew attention to how clever he was, and in the process, turned all eyes towards him. With the release of Tha Carter, Wayne's style had evolved dramatically, his words slowing and becoming more rhythmically centered. Lil Wayne's long, tall career arc has numerous peaks, but two stand out as celebrated moments of real innovation, where his narrative style took rapid strides.
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