Tha Carter V - Lil Wayne - Album Review

Lil Wayne has finally released the long awaited Tha Carter V. Lil Wayne finds stable ground on his last installment in Tha Carter series. With some shortcomings to Tha Carter V, Lil Wayne reaches peak moments that highlight the glory days of Tha Carter III.

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Lil Wayne, what else can you say about the rockstar rapper? Besides being one of the most successful artists of the 2000s, Lil Wayne has yet to see better days in the 2010s. While Lil Wayne has been doing commercially well, he has not been on the side of die-hard fans and critics alike. It seems that after Tha Carter III Lil Wayne started to experiment with a more rock oriented sound on Rebirth, and has caused him one of the most embarrassing moments of his career. Even though with many flops under his belt, Lil Wayne has dropped amazing guest verses throughout the 2010s that have only gotten better with each appearance; ranging from hyping his delayed album on "No Problems" with Chance The Rapper, to lyrically wild moments on "M'$" with A$AP Rocky, the man has certainly kept busy. While Tha Carter V might not be the perfect album some have waited for, it captures Lil Wayne at his finest since the late 2000s.

The album starts out with Wayne's mother talking about how everyone has been anticipating the release of his delayed album. Immediately the first couple of tracks speak on Wayne's fame within the media and his portrayal, "Dedicate" and "Uproar" speak on the rappers prominence and legal disputes. "Dedicate" finds Wayne on a bright piano sample where he spits bars about his influence on the rap game "I started this shit, you just part of this shit / I'm the heart of this shit, and the heart doesn't skip / Take the heart of yo' bitch, 'cause like Bart, you a simp / And your water don't drip so your garden ain't shit.". Wayne jumps into a series of highlights that feel reminiscent of an era where he held the crown as hip-hop's "prince", but inconsistencies plague Tha Carter V from being a refined comeback. The album has moments where it feels as if Wayne finally jumps back on his prime, however he overloads the album with dated tracks that feel like from forever ago.

There comes a handful of tracks that serve to please party listeners and the mainstream, however these tracks suffer because of their outdated atmosphere and production. The tracks "Start This Shit Off Right" and "Open Safe" reside within the late bling era of hip-hop, and the songs should have never made it on to the album. Generic and plain, Wayne truly hurts himself on this project with tedious tracks, they do not use their respective samples to their full potential. Wayne deserves props for some of the low-key cuts that he has on the project, "Demon" has a beautiful guitar loop where Wayne's flow takes the spotlight "Sleepin' with the enemy, my demons are too intimate / She's sleepin' very gently so now they're startin' to enter it / And now they're startin' to mentor me, geekin’ like Brittany / Tweakin' my energy, eat and die sympathy". Pop-rap vibes make it onto "Dope New Gospel" and the catchiness of the track does not diminish from Wayne's "gangster" persona.

For the numerous amount of great tracks Tha Carter V has, there also comes some boring moments within the track-listing and features. The guests on the album do not have any entertaining value, the Travis Scott feature on "Let It Fly" feels generic, and Nicki Minaj on "Dark Side Of The Moon" serves as dull and lifeless. Still, for every bad feature comes a great collaboration, Kendrick Lamar shares a great pace of flow with Wayne on "Mona Lisa", and Snoop Dogg has an infectious delivery on "Dope Niggaz". One of the odd features in the track-listing came with a snippet of late rapper XXXTENTACION, whose vocals aren't too shabby on "Don't Cry".

Tha Carter V ends on a triumphant albeit sad note with "Let It All Work Out". The song details the time Lil Wayne accidentally shot himself when he was twelve years old, but reveals he intended to kill himself. The song has a driving Sampha sample throughout, and some of the lyrics find Wayne at his most personal "I shot it, and I woke up with blood all around me / It's mine, I didn't die, but as I was dying / God came to my side and we talked about it / He sold me another life and he made a prophet".

Tha Carter V might not be the perfect album that some would have hoped for, but it still has many great cuts that find Wayne at his cockiest, brilliant, and most personal. Lil Wayne might not have the lyrical bravado of some of his contemporaries, but he makes up with his genius wordplay and irresistible personality. As the final installment in Tha Carter series, Tha Carter V is an homage to both to die-hard fans of Wayne and to hip-hop. Tha Carter V is a victory lap of sorts, it just reconfirms that Lil Wayne is responsible for some of the trends going on in hip-hop today, and that he might be one of the greatest rappers of all time.

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6.5/10

Released: 2018

Label: Young Money Records

Favorite tracks: Don't Cry, Dedicate, Mona Lisa, Dope Niggaz, Hittas, Demon, Mess, Dope New Gospel, Let It All Work Out

Worst tracks: Start This Shit Off Right, Open Letter