Lil Wayne "Tha Carter" In Review: 10 Year Anniversary

1CK1S
1CK1S Members Posts: 27,471 ✭✭✭✭✭
With Tha Carter V a confirmed end of the line for the saga, Lil Wayne’s original namesake was released ten years ago this weekend. Serving as the rapper’s fourth album at the time, it quickly became his biggest commercial splash. Debuting at #5 on the Billboard Top 200, the album sold more than a hundred thousand copies its first week and followed Weezy’s Da Drought mixtape as a more tangible success.

Featuring a mostly solitary Wayne, Tha Carter tracklist is also dotted by Birdman and Mannie Fresh features on songs like “This is the Carter.” The more than 20-track release was also Mannie Fresh’s last hurrah at Cash Money before he shipped out to Def Jam South a year later. On this album though, Fresh produced well over half of the songs, including the first two singles. Five years removed from his platinum debut Tha Block Is Hot, a nearly 22-year old Wayne didn’t match the initial success of his younger self immediately, but Tha Carter catalyzed the rest of his career and one of the most commercially successful album series ever.
Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter Reviews Revisited

These days it’s hard to stumble on many original reviews of Wayne’s first Carter album without bumping into commentary on his later successes. Four years after the original release, a Sputnik Music review congratulated the consistent production and early signs of growth from its rapper. “The rest of the album is standard at best but never lags on production,” the reviewer writes. “This album should be remembered because this is the album where Lil Wayne was showing improvement in his raps. You can tell that he is growing up because instead of just bragging the whole time about what he has, he puts in a sense of humor and mixes it with fine production from Mannie Fresh. If you don't like Lil Wayne but love Mannie Fresh's production, this album shows great promise.”

Another years-later review from All Music treated the album on different terms. “The title actually refers to Lil Wayne's actual last name (hint: it isn't Wayne), in addition to referencing the apartments run by Wesley Snipes' character in New Jack City,” Andy Kellman writes. “Although much has been made about Wayne's growth and new world view, there's about as much change as you'd expect from a Southern rap star who has been in the public eye from his late teens to his twenties. Mannie Fresh's stout production is in effect as ever, and to the MC's credit, the rhymes are less measured and are all the better for it. To beat that dead horse one more time, the album is far too long and not concerned enough with the quality control, despite including more than enough bright spots to keep the followers following.”
Lil Wayne Tha Carter Singles

If Tha Carter has an important place of its own in Wayne’s early career, his feature on Destiny Child’s “Soldier” single probably had a similar effect. On Tha Carter though, Wayne got his own first solo hit with “Go D.J.,” one of the album’s Mannie Fresh produced singles. Broaching into Top 40 territory, “Go D.J.” would eventually claim a Top 3 spot on the US Rap Charts. Maybe as a final hint at its lasting significance, Wayne would have to wait another four years before topping the single success of “Go D.J.” with “Lollipop.”

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  • 1CK1S
    1CK1S Members Posts: 27,471 ✭✭✭✭✭
    A decade after the release of the first, Lil Wayne is preparing the final installment of his "Tha Carter" series this year. HipHopDX takes a look back at the original.

    With Tha Carter V a confirmed end of the line for the saga, Lil Wayne’s original namesake was released ten years ago this weekend. Serving as the rapper’s fourth album at the time, it quickly became his biggest commercial splash. Debuting at #5 on the Billboard Top 200, the album sold more than a hundred thousand copies its first week and followed Weezy’s Da Drought mixtape as a more tangible success.

    Featuring a mostly solitary Wayne, Tha Carter tracklist is also dotted by Birdman and Mannie Fresh features on songs like “This is the Carter.” The more than 20-track release was also Mannie Fresh’s last hurrah at Cash Money before he shipped out to Def Jam South a year later. On this album though, Fresh produced well over half of the songs, including the first two singles. Five years removed from his platinum debut Tha Block Is Hot, a nearly 22-year old Wayne didn’t match the initial success of his younger self immediately, but Tha Carter catalyzed the rest of his career and one of the most commercially successful album series ever.

    These days it’s hard to stumble on many original reviews of Wayne’s first Carter album without bumping into commentary on his later successes. Four years after the original release, a Sputnik Music review congratulated the consistent production and early signs of growth from its rapper. “The rest of the album is standard at best but never lags on production,” the reviewer writes. “This album should be remembered because this is the album where Lil Wayne was showing improvement in his raps. You can tell that he is growing up because instead of just bragging the whole time about what he has, he puts in a sense of humor and mixes it with fine production from Mannie Fresh. If you don't like Lil Wayne but love Mannie Fresh's production, this album shows great promise.”

    Another years-later review from All Music treated the album on different terms. “The title actually refers to Lil Wayne's actual last name (hint: it isn't Wayne), in addition to referencing the apartments run by Wesley Snipes' character in New Jack City,” Andy Kellman writes. “Although much has been made about Wayne's growth and new world view, there's about as much change as you'd expect from a Southern rap star who has been in the public eye from his late teens to his twenties. Mannie Fresh's stout production is in effect as ever, and to the MC's credit, the rhymes are less measured and are all the better for it. To beat that dead horse one more time, the album is far too long and not concerned enough with the quality control, despite including more than enough bright spots to keep the followers following.”
    Lil Wayne Tha Carter Singles

    If Tha Carter has an important place of its own in Wayne’s early career, his feature on Destiny Child’s “Soldier” single probably had a similar effect. On Tha Carter though, Wayne got his own first solo hit with “Go D.J.,” one of the album’s Mannie Fresh produced singles. Broaching into Top 40 territory, “Go D.J.” would eventually claim a Top 3 spot on the US Rap Charts. Maybe as a final hint at its lasting significance, Wayne would have to wait another four years before topping the single success of “Go D.J.” with “Lollipop.”

    Elsewhere on the album, “Earthquake” and “Bring It Back” failed to gather the same attention, but both songs got turned into videos with the second making a successful run of its own.

    Lil Wayne Since Tha Carter

    After Wayne began stuttering commercially with albums like 500 Degreez early on, Tha Carter now feels like a symbolic transformation. The album didn’t produce the type of smashes Wayne has become known for, but it separated his childhood career from a much more lasting star-power.

    It wasn’t until 2008 that Wayne fully crossed over onto a stage that would yield “A Milli,” “Lollipop,” and a Grammy for Best Rap Album, but the first Carter opened up space for a sequel the next year and a continued trend of mixtape business. With Tha Carter III, Wayne established his ultimate mainstream relevance and sparked a new benchmark for success. Sitting comfortably as one of the industry’s most central figures, Wayne followed Tha Carter III with more left-field and commercially flailing attempt at rock in the Rebirth.

    Continually placing himself in his own world, Wayne went on to release I Am Not A Human Being and became the first artist since Tupac Shakur to have a #1 album on the market while behind bars. Finally, ushering in songs like “6 Foot 7 Foot,” Wayne returned to Tha Carter series with a fourth installment before sequelizing I Am Not A Human Being.

    This year, Wayne is scheduled to put a final mark on the album saga that he build his success on as well as retire from music more generally. "I personally plan on this being my final solo album, yes, and it's definitely the final Carter album," Lil Wayne recently said in an interview with MTV. "It's the final Carter album. It's stopping at five. I didn't smile when I said it."

    "I plan on it being my final solo album," Wayne he went on. "Whenever I have to pitch in for a Young Money album, a Like Father, Like Son album and something like that and maybe something out the blue, but the way I'm working on this album, it's to me, the way it seems like now,it seems like it'll be impossible for me to work this hard again for anything else."

    Earlier this week, Lil Wayne released "Krazy," the latest peek at what Tha Carter V might sound like.
  • _Goldie_
    _Goldie_ Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 30,349 Regulator
    edited June 2014
    Weezy was my favorite rapper at the time, I knew that ? was gonna be classic. To add on to the Hot boyz breaking up, sqad up had just broke up too, and they were killing the streets with the sq mixtapes. Those let the streets know he was one of the best in the game, C1 and C2 gave him mainstream status tho.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC43us5gPow
  • nujerz84
    nujerz84 Members Posts: 15,418 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Go DJ wack then still wack now
  • eternal soldier
    eternal soldier Members Posts: 2,784 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wayne ain't got no damn classic

    You'd be out of your head to truly believe that he doesn't at least have one. C1 is definitely one of his finer works. If not that, then C2 is where people started to familiarize wayne as his own. He carried Cash Money from 04-08.
  • Built 4 cuban linx
    Built 4 cuban linx Members Posts: 12,285 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wayne ain't got no damn classic

    You'd be out of your head to truly believe that he doesn't at least have one. C1 is definitely one of his finer works. If not that, then C2 is where people started to familiarize wayne as his own. He carried Cash Money from 04-08.

    Just cause something is his best work don't make it classic.
  • 5th Letter
    5th Letter Members, Moderators, Writer Posts: 37,068 Regulator
    nujerz84 wrote: »
    Go DJ wack then still wack now

    lol I remember the Ain't No ? vs Go DJ debate from a few years ago. The southerners were mad at me that day.
  • mosincredible
    mosincredible Members Posts: 2,051 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2014
    Easily my favorite Wayne album. Mannie brought the best out of him along with his hunger to actually be one of the best at that time.
  • Trollio
    Trollio Members Posts: 25,815 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • damobb2deep
    damobb2deep Members Posts: 19,972 ✭✭✭✭✭
    that c.d ran that summer. .. you could not go to any hood and not hear 1 song being played in a car... real ? that is a true classic if you never seen one...
  • StoneColdMikey
    StoneColdMikey Members, Moderators Posts: 33,543 Regulator
    Classic but c2>
  • MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14
    MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14 Members Posts: 15,337 ✭✭✭✭✭
    this was the wayne i never hated grown man ? real life bars and a work ethic second to none at the time this is why i am not impressed with the ? he puts out now cause c1 c2 leaked c3 tracks were much better than the ? ? ? he puts out now
  • Bcotton5
    Bcotton5 Members Posts: 51,851 ✭✭✭✭✭
  • Bcotton5
    Bcotton5 Members Posts: 51,851 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wayne ain't got no damn classic

    and you a ? ass ?
  • Bcotton5
    Bcotton5 Members Posts: 51,851 ✭✭✭✭✭
    that c.d ran that summer. .. you could not go to any hood and not hear 1 song being played in a car... real ? that is a true classic if you never seen one...

  • MallyG
    MallyG Members Posts: 4,916 ✭✭✭✭✭
    If U talkin' about an album that RIDE'S like a muhphuka, this is definitely one!! For those that say it isn't a classic, I can dig that, I really can, but I think it's a classic in it's own right/southern classic. This is the only Carter album that partly had a theme to it (the interludes where he's goin' thru the rooms of the Carter building) and not to mention the flow/continuity of the album was on point. I jus really remember what I was doin' and gettin' into around the city when this dropped (which really good albums make u do). I noticed Wayne started to get a lot better on "Lights Out", but this album he took it to a completely different level and the production matched it too. "Go DJ", "This is the Carter", "I miss my Dawgs", "Cash Money Millionaire", "Bring it Back", "Earthquake". C'mon mayne!

    Oh yeah this is his last album that still had some what of a New Orleans/Louisiana-ish sound to it.... Oh yeah, maybe it's b/c this is the last album Fresh produced on (and N.O. DJ Raj Smoove). lol
  • P. Town
    P. Town Members Posts: 27,306 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Album was and still is overrated. Only reason ? praise it so much was because it was a step better than that toilet paper ass album 500 Degreez
  • damobb2deep
    damobb2deep Members Posts: 19,972 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Monizzle14 wrote: »
    this was the wayne i never hated grown man ? real life bars and a work ethic second to none at the time this is why i am not impressed with the ? he puts out now cause c1 c2 leaked c3 tracks were much better than the ? ? ? he puts out now

    lol I remember ? saying they had carter 1 and 2 "real album" months before it dropped... even the tracks that didn't make the cut was fye!
  • MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14
    MeekMonizzLLLLLLe14 Members Posts: 15,337 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Monizzle14 wrote: »
    this was the wayne i never hated grown man ? real life bars and a work ethic second to none at the time this is why i am not impressed with the ? he puts out now cause c1 c2 leaked c3 tracks were much better than the ? ? ? he puts out now

    lol I remember ? saying they had carter 1 and 2 "real album" months before it dropped... even the tracks that didn't make the cut was fye!

    lol the early 2000's was to golden age of leaked music and bootleg album haha

  • damobb2deep
    damobb2deep Members Posts: 19,972 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Classic?




    Seinfeld-Leaving.gif
    if Snoop has a classic.... if dre has a classic... Wayne has a classic with this album... because everything Snoop and dre did with they albums... Wayne did with the carter...
  • Built 4 cuban linx
    Built 4 cuban linx Members Posts: 12,285 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wow we comparing this to ? and the chronic now,
  • damobb2deep
    damobb2deep Members Posts: 19,972 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wow we comparing this to ? and the chronic now,

    what did those 2 albums do that the carter ain't do....