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Lil Wayne - The LeakAlbum Review by:
Michael Ivey
Monday, January 7, 2008
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The unapologetic Lil Wayne jogged through his remix zone in 2007 and is incubating within the Carter’s basement as we speak. ‘The Leak,’ a precursor to ‘Tha Carter 3,’ seeps through the Internet and streets now, and this fourteen song mix is evidence of a pending re-birth. “Dying,” dope infested prose that laments and celebrates Wayne’s epic pain killing, is a “Bottom Of The Map” sort of breakthrough for him. Bass-chunky doom grips you into Wayne’s current genius-unpredictably patient flow and a smart eye for production.
In “Love Me Or Hate Me” exhilarating strings score big with his diligent rap style. “Did It Before” shows off the young emcee’s critical word play over Kanye West’s big beat; lusting hasn’t sounded this fun and melodically juvenile since Jay-Z’s “Face Off” (1997). “Oh that’s ya best friend? Yeah y’all kick it I know/ y’all prolly did it befo, she prolly licked it befo like it was liquid befo.” “Kush” is pure drug money, guaranteed to keep Itunes ringing with it’s screwed up chorus overdub (“Yeah we smoke that Kush/ and we ball like swooosh); the final twelve bars are vintage Lil Wayne and prove he’s not running out of metaphoric fuel: “Lift off Crys-stal, nig*a please, crackers wit cheese/ nig*a please we on J-E-Ts like Curtis Martin in white and green.”
Slip-ups from ‘The Leak’ are few, but that’s too many for the self proclaimed best rapper out. “The Only Reason,” (feat. T. Streets and Sizzler) seems to trump Wayne’s last reach at Reggae (“Mo Fire,” 2005), but T. Streets’ rap verse just gets in the way, and Wayne’s West Indian pitch sounds forced by the end. More Sizzler would’ve been a better order.
Wayne oozes Ropeadope-style confidence throughout ‘The Leak.’ The twenty-something human tattoo canvas audibly flares his nostrils between defiant verses like a child denied his favorite toy; “It rains a lot in my city cause my city cryin/ and still I emerge from all that, I am a living pion-eer close to Zion/ fear God not them,” (“Gossip”).
Though Wayne’s newest work laps most official albums released in the past two years, it’d be a disappointing surprise if any of its’ songs end up on ‘Tha Carter 3;’ it’s no secret that Wayne had and/or has co-writers, so there’s no room for recycled songs. From the looks of it ‘Tha Carter 3’ will stand as a watershed moment in the Louisiana natives’ rapidly burgeoning career.
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