Lil Wayne at the Rose Garden (original) (raw)
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The title of world's best rapper is constantly up for grabs, but the world's most prolific? Lil Wayne has little competition.
Besides the official releases bearing his name dating to the late '90s and his days with the Hot Boys, he's also been a frequent guest on tracks by other artists and, more significantly, a fixture on the mixtape circuit. Though mixtapes are less formal than albums -- often they include instrumentals used before; other elements, such as vocals, will be new -- Lil Wayne/Weezy's constant presence in the mixtape world made it clear, even between album releases, that he was a master of the game.
But it's not just the frequency of his appearances that have made his name. Lil Wayne's imagination is as strong as his output, helping him become not only a commercial success, but a critical one as well. (His 2008 album, "Tha Carter III," made my top 10 list last year, and the New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones once blogged about the rapper, "It's startling when you're just good.")
Wayne's world is an elastic place, with syllables laughingly, easily twined around beats. (His peers have noticed, and, in some cases, even bitten his style. Like Beyonce's "Diva"? It's a good track ... and it was even better when Lil Wayne did it first, as "A Milli," on "Tha Carter III.")
Yes, he's got the kind of outsized ego that characterizes so many rappers, but he leavens it with a goofiness and sense of humor that make his hubris more endearing than, say, Kanye West's. At an appearance on Letterman, he poked fun at the Grammys, himself and the music industry on the night's top 10 list. Lil Wayne then went on to win four Grammys this year.
Wayne grew up poor in New Orleans. "In New Orleans, reality is handed to you very, very early," he told Katie Couric in a recent interview. "That's the difference between New Orleans and everywhere else."
Though he's actually a Dwayne Junior, named after his father, he's long since dropped the "D" because, he said in the same interview, his father is not and never has been in his life. "I don't want to be Dwayne, I'd rather be Wayne."
"Does he know that?" Couric asked.
"He knows now," Wayne replied.
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Those rough early years have perhaps influenced his view of his music, that he's performing another kind of journalism, of reporting on life. An early achiever -- he got high grades as a student -- he began rapping before hitting his teens, with an album out by age 12. His peerless work ethic has meant that he's only improved on skills that were strong to start with.
Now, at the age of 26, he's a longtime vet, with a discography that dwarfs artists who have far more than his years. He's a freewheeling vocalist, one whose approach makes a mockery of so much cookie-cutter commercial rap, and yet he's a hugely successful commercial artist, too. In an era when the music industry has the tin cup out for help with album sales in freefall, Lil Wayne remains that rarest creature: a multi-platinum seller.
7:30 p.m. Thursday, Rose Garden; 39.75−39.75-39.75−79.75, rosequarter.com, 877-789-7673
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