Tha Carter V

I think that every public figure strives to have a legacy. We all want to be remembered and known for what we put into the world. This makes me think though, what defines a legacy? Is it the highs? Is it the lows? Is it the combination of the two? Or is it simply public perception? For me it’s hard to think about a Legacy because I’m so early in my pursuits. Also I don’t really have shit, if you ask me for credits before a comedy show I will give you a shrug and a “say whatever’s in your heart” every single time. But I digress, rappers don’t age well and a majority of them don’t get to have a legacy. Their whole careers get dwindled down to one song on the radio show and if they’re lucky, a soundbite in a commercial for a white product that features a hit song they had 10 years ago. The ones that are lucky enough to have a full career are often scrutinized heavily by skeptics (aka haters) like myself. Lil Wayne is one of those artists. At one point he was the greatest rapper alive. He was inescapable, he was inevitable. He was like Thanos with a lean addiction. Every beat belonged to him and he could give someone a hit by singing a hook...AND HE COULDN’T EVEN SING. His reign seemed to last forever until it became clear that a new King/Queen was to replace him. While those who followed were influenced by him, the community at large began to forget about Wayne’s prior greatness. Unfortunately, this wasn’t helped by a gun charge that landed him in jail and the label disputes that caused his album to be pushed back for years. Things weren’t looking good for Wayne, his music wasn’t popping, his dreads started falling apart, his light was dimming like one of the forgotten skeletons in Coco. Luckily for us, Tha Carter 5 has finally been released. Tha Carter 5 is a representation of Lil Wayne’s legacy. It took us years to finally get to this place. Birdman held onto it like it was money he owes to Mannie Fresh; I honestly thought we’d never hear it. But by some miracle it’s here. Let’s get to it.

Almost as far back as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of Lil Wayne. And as far back as I can remember, Lil Wayne fans have made jokes about Birdman and Wayne’s relationship. The infamous picture (and less famous footage) of them kissing on the lips aside, Stunna got clowned for making a cameo in what felt like every Weezy video when he had no place being there. Even if it was a split-second shot of him, he’d be there. But all jokes aside, it was clear, even to me as an 11-year-old, that their relationship was special. Many shunned the idea of Birdman being a father figure to Wayne but as a child who’d never met their father, I fully understood the role that an older man can have on a kid and it made sense to me. For years they were adamant that they were father and son despite blood, but that just made those Lil Wayne tweets in December of 2014 all the more insane. “To all my fans, I want u to know that my album won’t and hasn’t been released bekuz Baby & Cash Money Rec. refuse to release it” he tweeted. He left no space for confusion or doubt by mentioning Birdman as well as the label. “I am a prisoner and so is my creativity… I want off this label and nothing to do with these people but unfortunately it ain’t that easy”. To say that this came as a shock to me would be a criminal understatement. I barely even believed it to be true. Surely, he was hacked? Families feud, but to see something break out on Twitter like this was surprising to say the least. Nonetheless, I thought it was a misunderstanding that would be resolved sooner than later so that the album in question, Tha Carter V, could get an early 2015 release. But weeks passed and instead, in January Lil Wayne released Sorry 4 The Wait 2, on it, taking aggressive shots at Birdman. “Who put this shit together, nigga? Me, that’s who, who was there when niggas left us, nigga? Me, that’s who” he rapped over O.T. Genasis’ “CoCo”. He was saying what everyone was thinking in bold fashion. Tensions even arose between him and Young Thug, who was with Birdman a lot at the time and people said was a Wayne clone. The legacy that had been built over the course of two decades was crumbling before our eyes and we barely knew why. Over the years, we’ve come to find out that Stunna owed Wayne money to the tune of $51,000,000 and was hiding the fact from him. It took until June of 2018 for the lawsuit to be resolved and more importantly, Wayne’s freedom to be reinstated. Better late than never. It was time.