Lil Wayne: The Next Big Thang?

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Author: Eric Roddie

So I was chillin’ in my dorm room, listening to Kanye West’s Graduation, when I started thinking about one of the most pressing issues of our time—namely, whether Lil Wayne is really the best rapper alive.

If you’re one of the million plus people who purchased Graduation, or if you stole—I mean downloaded—it, you may know Wayne as the guy who drops a pretty bad guest verse on “Barry Bonds,” the album’s only weak track. If not, maybe you know him from Juvenile’s timeless middle-school rap classic “Back That Azz Up.” You know, the squeaky-voiced kid goin’ “drop-drop-drop it like it’s hot” at the end? Yeah.

In the last couple of years, though, Wayne’s gone from being the dude who introduced “bling bling” to popular culture to being every critic’s favorite rapper other than Kanye West. Despite still being relatively obscure in the broader popular music scene, he’s put out a ridiculous amount of free mixtape material in this year alone and appeared on everyone and their mothers’ singles. His skills have also vastly improved to the point that some people have been taking his “best rapper alive” claims seriously. He’s gained the support of Kanye West, who’s supposedly executive-producing Tha Carter III, his next album due out December 18.

So is Wayne really the best rapper alive? I think he’s closer than his opponents would like to admit. That being said, there’s a couple of things he has to accomplish before he can be known as the best rapper alive and no longer the kid going “bling bling” and “drop it like it’s hot” (Did Snoop Dogg steal his status on that last one?).

First off, Wayne has yet to really blow up. Actually, right now he’s better known for his guest appearances than his own records. Not that skill is always correlated with popularity, but when the average music listener still doesn’t really know who you are, it’s kind of tough to call yourself the best rapper alive. I mean, one of Wayne’s biggest claims to fame in the last year or so is doing the hook to Fat Joe’s “Make It Rain.” Not that I have anything against such an epic and meaningful song-but still.

Secondly, there are Wayne’s albums. He’s got two albums that can be considered pretty good. Compare this statistic to the dude every sane rap fan knows is the best rapper alive, Jay-Z. In addition to remaining popular for around 10 years, Jay’s got seven out of nine albums that are at least good, if not great.

This is why Tha Carter III is going to be the real test for whether Dwayne Carter surpasses Shawn Carter (Jay-Z’s real name) this year. In a couple of weeks, Jay’s going to be releasing the movie-inspired album American Gangster, which by the sound of all insider previews is pretty damn good. But if Tha Carter III turns out to be both a commercial smash and a ridiculously good album, Wayne will have serious bragging rights over his former idol.

My advice? I’d say Wayne should twist Kanye’s arm until he gives him a beat as great as Graduation‘s “Stronger” or “Good Life.” I have my doubts, though, because Kanye West has a track record of saving his best beats for, well, Kanye West. Still, Kanye’s probably the best chance Wayne has for a hit single at this point.

Wayne’s also got to make sure the album is noticeably less bizarre with the simile and punchline lyrics than his recent mixtapes. I don’t know if it’s the drugs, but some of his recent stuff is about evenly split between weirdly entertaining and just plain weird. He even has a track where he sings over the beat to Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” That type of thing might be OK for random mixtape cuts, but if Carter III is too out-there for its own good it may just sell about 10 copies.

When all’s said and done though, I hope Wayne’s new album does well—if only for the fact that it’s coming out on the same day as the new G-Unit album. It’d be pretty amusing if 50 Cent lost twice.

Eric Roddie is a junior Economics major. He can be reached at eroddie@oxy.edu.

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