Tha Carter III - Album Review

Lil Wayne is the self-proclaimed "Best Rapper Alive," since the best rapper retired.  Considering the consensus best rapper alive never officially retired, that doesn't make Lil Wayne the best at anything. Wayne's newest installment to Tha Carter trilogy is evidence of this. The likes of Fat Joe and even MTV have gone on record (on air) to say that Birdman J.R. is the best hip hop has to offer. This blog is the official What JLB Thinks review of Tha Carter III. This is a track by track and illustration as to why, this Carter isn't even the BEST of the III.

In order for a champion to repeat they must at first actually win in their sport. Junior introduces us to Tha Carter III with the track entitled 3 Peat. This is your typical get buck in the club production that you could place any southern rapper on and watch them thrive. Heavy 808s chants of "hey" in the background sewn together with a series of sped up strings. This track Wayne gives us his take on why he's the best by saying "I just do this sh*t for my clique like Adam Sandler (Click)/I control hip-hop and he gon' keep it on my channel." After several listens I've decided that this is a decent intro track, but I do feel that it is inappropriately titled.

Mr. Carter feat Jay-Z is the second track on the album and my copy reads it is produced by Mr. Let's Take 'Em to Church himself, the one and only Just Blaze. The production is everything you expect from Just Blaze. Although I must admit it sounds more like a Kanye track to me than anything with the violin play and the sped up sample voice that says "Hey! Mr. Carter tell me where have you been?" during the hook. Honestly this is an average song as far as lyrics are concerned. Neither of the Mr. Carters featured on this track says anything that was particularly hot. Jay-Z officially crowns Lil Wayne as the next Hov in his verse by saying"...sharing mic time with my heir...dope boy I just came off the spoon/Also I'm so fly, I'm on AUTO/Pilot where guys just stare at my wardrobe/I see Euros, that's right plural/I took so much change from this rap game it's your go."

The production throughout this album is solid. Hell it should be with the super producers featured on this record. Track 3 A Milli has got many spins on the radio and on the mixtape circuit and producer Bangladesh proves that you have a banger without being a top dollar producer. Bangladesh can have a future with beats like these. This track is fire, but Wayne messes it up with his senseless flow with lines like "I'm the best like Biggie, Tupac, Andre 3000 where is Erykah Badu at?" Wayne also loses points for this track by removing Corey Gunz' verse off of it for the album version. I guess you can't be the best with younger cats with little to no fame murdering you on your own record.

Track 4 is Wayne's second single Got Money feat T-Pain. I foresaw this collaboration back when we started to hear Pain and Wayne featuring on every body's remixes and singles. This song is the Auto-Tune (Voice box) anthem. If you're not paying attention you could often mistake Pain for Wayne and vice versa. Production is solid yet again, but Wayne ruins it with lines like "I wear so much ice they  yell 'skate Wayne!' She wanna f**k Weezy and rape Wayne" and my favorite  "Click Clack goes the Black, four fifth/just like it I will blow that sh*t cuz b***h I'm the bomb like tick tick'"

Track 5 really grew on me after like 2 days of playing the album non-stop. It's entitled Comfortable feat Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, produced by Mr. West (Kanye). Man who would have thunk it? Not me! This combo of Wayne and Face, is a winner. I really dig Babyface's soft crooning over the light violins that we hear from Kanye often. The drum pattern is similar of those that we hear from Yay often, but it works. Wayne starts the track about not taking your loved one for granted by saying "To the left to the left/If you wanna leave be my guess you can step/Feeling irreplaceable, listening to Beyonce/Well okay I'll put you out on your B-Day. This is a potential third single for Weezy if he wants to show his other side to the ladies.

Track 6 is the SECOND WORST song on the album and it's produced by my boys (this is, this is this is) Cool & Dre but damn did they miss with this one. It's called Phone Home and has this annoying chant of a hook that goes "Phone home, phone home" over and over. Wayne raps about how he's a martian come to earth to eat all the competition because "hip-hop is my supermarket/shopping cart full of fake hip-hop artists." Wayne has a few good one liners like "no brake lights on my car-rear (career) but the hook makes it unbearable. I like the concept, it gets an A for effort but a failure overall.

Track 7 is my favor cut from this album. It's entitled Dr. Carter produced by Swizz Beatz. The concept of the song in genius. It is about a doctor (Wayne) who has a conversation in between each verse with his nurse about hip-hop acts who suffer symptoms from lack of concepts, no originality, weak flow, no style, no respect for the game, and no swagger. Each verse Wayne performs surgery if you will, on each verse with lines like "Respect is in the heart so that's where I'mma start/And a lot of heart patients don't make it, but hey kid/Plural I graduated and cuz can get through anything if magic made it/That was called recycling or re-reciting something cuz you just like it so you say it just like it/Some say it's bitin' but I say it's enlightin'/Besides, Dr. Kanye West is one of the brightest/And Dr. Swizz can stitch a track up the tightest/And Dr. Jeezy can fix ya back up the nicest/Arhtritis in my hand from writing but I'm a doctor they don't understand my writin'." Ironically all the symptoms Weezy feels are prevalent in hip-hop, he suffers from himself, which in turn prevents this from being the best song on the album. Close second in my opinion.

Track 8 is another track produced by Kanye West and it features Robin Thicke. The name of this track is Tie My Hands. Not the best track I've heard from Kanye by any means, but the message behind and the vocals by Rob are the only reason why I can't completely diss this record because it definitely sounds like a "throw away" beat that Yay didn't want and couldn't move. The song is about Katrina and how residents of New Orleans have been treated like prisoners and considered refugees. This song touches on the pain that's associated with the tragedy and Wayne expresses this in lines like "Every dark cloud has a silver lining."

Track 9 is also produced by Kanye, it's called Shoot Me Down it has a drill/marching type of vibe with the drum pattern, similar to "Jesus Walks" nothing stands out about this song lyrically or production wise (another throw away) and Wayne talks about how he spits "Alcatraz bars I know/and D-Boyz is the only alphabet boys I know."

Track 10, Playin With Fire has a real rockstar vibe to it so it's no surprise that Wayne picked it for a beat. He thinks he's a rockstar in majority of the videos we see him in. Wayne rants and raves about nothing on this song. It offers nothing lyrically with lines like "Osh Kosh B Gosh Posh Spice husband couldn't kick it like I kick it." He does raise a good point when he says "when your great it's not murder, it's assassinate" and he goes on to compare himself to Dr. King and how he's checking into the same hotel, room, screaming "assassinate me bitch!" Not sure where he was going but to these crackers if he was to go, it'd be MURDER in the media, NOT assassinate, next to his name. He does use a recycled verse from a the Drought Is Over 2...Carter 3 Sessions mixtape from the track "World of Fantasy" where he says "Remember your pussy husband used to beat ya..." real Wayne fans won't care hell they ain't even reading this review.

Track 11 is Lollipop somebody save us!

Track 12 is an absolute FLOP, it's HORRIBLE and you got to be on just as much coke and lean that Wayne to sit through the garbage ass track featuring Briscoe and Busta Rhymes. It's called La La produced by David Banner. They missed by a long shot with this one and it should be heard on the pause menu of a Pokemon game, or Willy Wonka mixtape.

Track 13 is entitled Nothin' On Me featuring Faboloso and Juelz Santana and is produced by Alchemist. Finally! Some young talent on the album who can actually rap. Best song on the album and it's because of Fab and Juelz' contributions. Wayne gets on singing and auto tuning, which surprisingly adds to the heat of the record. Fab starts the track off proper and ends his verse with a line in reference to his drop top auto that "is Ocean Drive inspired, so you can "Call A Cab" once ya chick fall for Fab."

Track 14 Let the Beat Build is another gem from the album, produced by Mr. Kanye West. The song does exactly what the title states by allowing the beat to build, by bringing in different aspects of the beat such as the sample voice, 808s, snare,hi-hats at different times. Wayne raps about nothing, but it's so easy to get lost in the beat that you can drown out his nonsense like "I wear red, like a girl's toe, no homo." Classic example of how the production can save a wack record.

Track 15 is called Mrs. Officer I dig this track it features Bobby Valentino and is produced by Wyclef. This song is about a female trooper that pulls Wayne over for any of the crimes you could bring him up on and once he gets in the squad car he spits game to her. I dig the concept, the song is clever and this could be a potential single as well. Only set back on the track is the imitation of a siren that Valentino does with his singing. It sounds like "weeee oooh weee ooooh weee."

Track 16 is the end of Tha Carter III and it uses the same sample as Common's "Misunderstood" from Finding Forever. This song on Tha Carter III is called Misunderstood (ya don't say?). The song offers nothing lyrically, but it's kind of funny towards the end as he has a "long talk monologue shit at the end of the album." (Phonte) Where he disses Rev. Al Sharpton and expresses why he and apparently nobody else likes Al. It's like five minutes long. During this monologue Wayne shows he has a bit of sense with his analysis of blacks in jail, drugs (which he has his P.h.d in) and how drug dealers get taken out of their neighborhoods and sent to jail and replaced with sex offenders and whether that is a coincidence or a "misunderstanding." The most entertaining part of this track is his rambling and not even his rapping.

All in all this album is weak. It did not live up to the hype surrounding it. Let's face it, it's entitled Tha Carter III the guy clearly has no more creativity left and needs to do less features and mixtapes and spend more time in solitude working on his craft. Or seeking out Gillie to write for him so we can experience heat that we did on 500 Degreez and the first Tha Carter installment. On a 10 scale I would give this album a 7. It's an average rap album that we hear nowadays, the producer lineup that consists of Alchemist, Kanye (4), Swizzy, Just Blaze, and Cool and Dre saves the album from being a 5 or a 6 because it is evident that the drugs have gotten to Dwayne and he, like his pappy, suffers from lack of content.