Opinions?
Words by Jesse H.
Perhaps it’s a little too early to tell all the haters “I told you so” in regards to the last post I did on Lil Wayne, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but I just don’t see how anyone can be hating on the kid right now. True, “Tha Carter 3” hasn’t dropped yet and that has to be considered as the real test for Weezy that decides whether or not he will be remembered as one of the greats. But, at the very least, I can point to a track on “Tha Carter 3 Sessions” (posted on our Stray Shots a few days ago) as evidence of Weezy’s leap to the upper echelon.
Every other track could have been mediocre (they weren’t) and it wouldn’t have mattered based alone on how Weezy spits on “Something you Forgot” a tale about a lost love that displays exactly what’s setting Lil Wayne apart from everybody right now: his passion. Nobody in the game right now has more passion than him when it comes to this Hip-Hop. Particularly on this track, he’s approaching Tupacian levels of passion, something I haven’t heard in years.
He nails the out of breath, all or nothing feeling of losing a girl, so incredibly well, that you can’t help but feel for him.
“Give me back my girl and you give me back my life,” “What she means to me is what I mean to rap,” “and I know you probably wish you never met me, and I just wish you never forget me,” “and I hope the n**** know he got a queen, and all I can do is dream… Damn”
Every guy has been through that before, losing that first girl that meant the world and more, and it’s the vulnerability felt after that loss that can lead to those feelings of “fuck bitches, get money” that Weezy echoed in some of his songs before.
Now that he’s addressing something so personal, its easier to take a retrospective look and see why he does those meaningless songs sometimes, and its easier to forgive him for it. Sometimes we put rap stars on such another plane that we forget that they’ve gone through regrettable breakups, just like we have, and Weezy’s courageous for making himself so humanistic and vulnerable.
Its that vulnerability that’s missing from a lot of today’s rappers. While its trendy to do a “heartfelt personal song,” most of them are about dead friends and/or relatives (T.I.-“Live in the Sky”) or incarcerated friends and/or relatives (Young Jeezy- “Talk to Em”), and while these are weighty subjects, and even good songs, neither subject makes the rapper look like they are at fault for what happened or that they’re an imperfect person because of a personal mistake. Weezy’s vulnerability is personal because he admits that its (gasp) he who made the mistake. (“But I fucked up, I know I fucked up, I admit I fucked up, but everybody fucks up”) He’s the one responsible for the pain that he’s in, he’s at fault for his own struggle, and that makes him all the more genuine.
It’s that personal vulnerability and personal fault that accounts for some of Hip-Hops truest moments ever recorded. It’s what made The Game’s drunken apology on “Doctor’s Advocate” work, it’s what made Jay’s “Song Cry” and “Regrets” work, it’s what helped define Tupac’s career, and it’s what helps us see that no matter how many records are sold, how many cars are bought, or how many dollars are made, no man can outrun the flaws that plague mankind, no man can outthink his own conscience, and no man can achieve perfection.
Our passion stems from our attempt at distancing ourselves from our flaws. What defines the difference between the mediocre and the memorable are that the memorable not only utilize their passion, but they address where it comes from, even if it means painting over the character they’ve created, and showing us that they aren’t perfect.
Words by Jesse H.
Perhaps it’s a little too early to tell all the haters “I told you so” in regards to the last post I did on Lil Wayne, and I hate to sound like a broken record, but I just don’t see how anyone can be hating on the kid right now. True, “Tha Carter 3” hasn’t dropped yet and that has to be considered as the real test for Weezy that decides whether or not he will be remembered as one of the greats. But, at the very least, I can point to a track on “Tha Carter 3 Sessions” (posted on our Stray Shots a few days ago) as evidence of Weezy’s leap to the upper echelon.
Every other track could have been mediocre (they weren’t) and it wouldn’t have mattered based alone on how Weezy spits on “Something you Forgot” a tale about a lost love that displays exactly what’s setting Lil Wayne apart from everybody right now: his passion. Nobody in the game right now has more passion than him when it comes to this Hip-Hop. Particularly on this track, he’s approaching Tupacian levels of passion, something I haven’t heard in years.
He nails the out of breath, all or nothing feeling of losing a girl, so incredibly well, that you can’t help but feel for him.
“Give me back my girl and you give me back my life,” “What she means to me is what I mean to rap,” “and I know you probably wish you never met me, and I just wish you never forget me,” “and I hope the n**** know he got a queen, and all I can do is dream… Damn”
Every guy has been through that before, losing that first girl that meant the world and more, and it’s the vulnerability felt after that loss that can lead to those feelings of “fuck bitches, get money” that Weezy echoed in some of his songs before.
Now that he’s addressing something so personal, its easier to take a retrospective look and see why he does those meaningless songs sometimes, and its easier to forgive him for it. Sometimes we put rap stars on such another plane that we forget that they’ve gone through regrettable breakups, just like we have, and Weezy’s courageous for making himself so humanistic and vulnerable.
Its that vulnerability that’s missing from a lot of today’s rappers. While its trendy to do a “heartfelt personal song,” most of them are about dead friends and/or relatives (T.I.-“Live in the Sky”) or incarcerated friends and/or relatives (Young Jeezy- “Talk to Em”), and while these are weighty subjects, and even good songs, neither subject makes the rapper look like they are at fault for what happened or that they’re an imperfect person because of a personal mistake. Weezy’s vulnerability is personal because he admits that its (gasp) he who made the mistake. (“But I fucked up, I know I fucked up, I admit I fucked up, but everybody fucks up”) He’s the one responsible for the pain that he’s in, he’s at fault for his own struggle, and that makes him all the more genuine.
It’s that personal vulnerability and personal fault that accounts for some of Hip-Hops truest moments ever recorded. It’s what made The Game’s drunken apology on “Doctor’s Advocate” work, it’s what made Jay’s “Song Cry” and “Regrets” work, it’s what helped define Tupac’s career, and it’s what helps us see that no matter how many records are sold, how many cars are bought, or how many dollars are made, no man can outrun the flaws that plague mankind, no man can outthink his own conscience, and no man can achieve perfection.
Our passion stems from our attempt at distancing ourselves from our flaws. What defines the difference between the mediocre and the memorable are that the memorable not only utilize their passion, but they address where it comes from, even if it means painting over the character they’ve created, and showing us that they aren’t perfect.
