Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III,” 16 Years Later (Pt. 1)

I remember being in middle school in 2008. Every day when I got home, I would forget about my homework and hop on the Xbox360 to play games with my friends. I had already been a Lil Wayne fan for some years when this masterpiece came out, but I remember well how it changed the way I listened to music, and how it provided the soundtrack to many happy hours of gaming with my friends.

When a work of art, however low brow it may seem, shapes you to such an extent, it’s impossible to extricate your personality and projections from the work itself.

I remember I had my mom’s boombox in my room, and I would spin the censored version of Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III over and over, memorizing the fiendishly exciting lyrics, reciting them for my friends, hiding it all from my parents as best as I could. They, my parents, weren’t particularly in love with the idea that I, a middleclass white kid in a Christian school, was so enamored with the sound of Lil Wayne and company. 

The parallels between the Rockabilly music that so vexed middleclass parents long before I was born and hip-hop are easy to draw, when you consider that both were, perhaps, more simplistic than the music that preceded them, and that both were considered, at the time, highly inappropriate for youngsters. This, of course, prevented virtually no youngster from partaking in the musical events of their lives.

After all, what’s really simplistic about rap and hip-hop? From a classical perspective, there is no perspective on these art works (or at least, there wasn’t back in 2008, to my knowledge). As a lifelong enjoyer of Rachmaninov, Mozart, Scriabin, etc., I have no problem saying that hip-hop is just as clever, just as elevating, as any classical work. Of course, whether a hip-hop song can be sublime like a work of classical music can is perhaps a conversation for a different blog post.

But I lived it. From the beginning of the album where Lil Wayne insists, darkly, that he would “run up in a ___’s house and shoot his grandmother up,” to the end, where, with the help of a Nina Simone sample, he persuades the listener that he’s “just a soul whose intentions are good.” 

“Yessir! They can’t stop me! Even if they stopped me…”

The opening line of the album already lands the listener in the realm of contradiction and complexity that is the characteristic bouquet of a Lil Wayne song. This first song, 3 Peat, even in 2008 may have been a bit of a throwback, in that it uses a very characteristic and slightly dated, ghostly (for lack of a better term) synth that climbs the walls in a very slick way.

The next song, “Mr. Carter (feat. JAY-Z)” goes largely without introduction, as it was a defining song of the era. The collaboration between the two giants, Lil Wayne and Jay-Z, with eye-popping and tantalizing images of hip-hop heritage and flag-bearing became an anthem soon after it was released. “Man,” raps Wayne, “I got summer hating on me ‘cause I’m hotter than the sun. Got sping hating on me ‘cause I ain’t never sprung. Winter hating on me ‘cause I’m colder than y’all. And I will never—I will never—I will never fall.” 

Song number three, arguably the most hyped song on the album, “A Milli,” is indeed a masterpiece. From the sly sample, to the incredible rhythmic inventiveness that Wayne imbues the song with, “A Milli” was destined for the radio. “Okay, you’re a goon, but what’s a goon to a goblin?” the famous words that defined a generation.

“Got Money (feat. T-Pain)” is another that was destined for the radio. This may, in fact, be Wayne’s most radio-conscious album to date. Since music moved to streaming, this has been less of a concern for most artists, I daresay. The club anthem “Got Money” is a fun song, playful, with lots of the clever wordplay and the wily interjections that we expect from Wayne. This is also, perhaps, one of T-Pain’s last hurrahs before his autotune sound was stolen by…well…Wayne and others. Some may remember how his sound (T-Pain’s) dominated the airwaves for a few brief but important years in hip-hop history, including 2008.

The song “Comfortable (feat. Babyface)” is a chill, soulful, Kanye-produced testament to…well…is it love? Is it loyalty? Another beautiful contradiction in Wayne’s oeuvre. And who could forget the immortal shoutout “Thank you, Mr. West!” at the end?

“Dr. Carter” is my personal favorite. I love the inventiveness of the sampled beat, fusing jazz and hip-hop in a way that only Wayne could. The self-aggrandizing lyrics and clever format make Dr. Carter a kind of niche classic. I’m certain that I annoyed the hell out of my younger brother by playing this one over and over. The setup of the song is that Wayne is a doctor, operating on hip-hop patients to rehabilitate them. After two failures, Dr. Carter finally finds a hopeful patient who comes back to life. One wonders who Dr. Carter’s last patient may have been. Could it have been the upcoming protégé Drake? “Welcome back, hip-hop, I saved your life!” 

Song 7, “Phone Home” is endearing. On the tails of “Dr. Carter,” we are transported to Mars, where Wayne says that he is from. I appreciate the sci-fi like augmented arpeggios. To my knowledge, this is the beginning of the running joke in Wayne’s work that he is “a Martian.”

“Tie My Hands (feat. Robin Thicke)” is an example of the sensitive, ever-soulful Wayne. A testament and memorial to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, LA and beyond, it’s tearful melody and vocals echo through time and meet the listener in a rare moment of honesty and introspection, even 16 years later.

“Mrs. Officer” was another radio hit, however unlikely. The premise, absurd and comical, buoys itself through irony and lack of inhibition. A classic Wayne song, no doubt, full of clever puns. “And after we got done,” Wayne says, “I asked, ‘Lady what’s your number?’ She said, ‘9-1-1.’”

Half of the album done. Thanks for reading! Part 2 coming later.