This past Tuesday (6/10), Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III finally hit stores, a week after it leaked online. It’s the New Orleans MC’s sixth LP, and the most anticipated hip-hop release of the year. In an online-exclusive roundtable, unfolding throughout the week, panelists Jonah Weiner (Blender senior editor), Nick Sylvester (writer and riffmarket.com blogger), Josh Eells (Blender senior editor) and Robert Christgau (Blender contributing editor) debate the burning question: Does it live up to the hype?

Opinion: Nick Sylvester
Opinion: Josh Eells
Opinion: Robert Christgau
Opinion: Jonah Weiner
Opinion II: Nick Sylvester
Opinion II: Josh Eells
Opinion II: Robert Christgau
POLL: Which track on Tha Carter III do YOU think is the best?

Dear Nick, Josh and Bob,  

Finally. Last week, Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and Tha Carter III leaked. Today, it’s in stores for real. African-Americans and white, Volvo-owning, sizzurp-sipping elites, this is your now!  

Bridging the gap between these two events, sorta, is Jay-Z, who released “A Billi” over the weekend. A remix of Tha Carter III’s monstrous “A Milli,” the song features two fewer verses but, you know, three more zeroes at the end, because Jay-Z is very rich. It also features hip-hop’s highest-profile Obama love to date: “Brrrap! Brrrap! Lick a shot for Brrrack Obama/ Change gon’ come or I’mma buy the whole ‘hood llamas.” (Llamas, I learned when T.I. came to the Blender offices a couple years ago and schooled me, are pistols — ironic that he was the one to tell me since his llama farm wound up biting him in the ass last October). Disappointingly, at no point in the song does Jay-Z utter the phrase, “Barack-a-Fella, y’all,” but I’m holding out hope for the remix to the remix. (Funny enough, Juelz Santana likened himself and Lil Wayne to Obama on the 2007 Roc-a-Fella taunt “Black Democrats” — they were the new breed running Jay and Nas “out of office” — but that non-beef is apparently squashed.)  

The fact that “A Milli” proved so irresistible to Jay-Z seems to reinforce my hunch: If this isn’t the single of the summer, it’s got to be the street single of the summer. When you live in New York City, this basically amounts to the same thing. It’s the nasty-ass loogie every other car radio is going to hock, stinking and sizzling, onto the asphalt. This is momentous for Wayne. A decade into his career, he’s never before been a summer-dominating hopeful (two excellent flame-themed singles notwithstanding), which speaks to his stunning transformation from regional novelty to the rock star Jay-Z calls “my heir.” How did he get here?  

Nor has Wayne ever been a No. 1 pop artist, an injustice the sex jam “Lollipop” has rectified for the last four weeks and counting. It’s funny that “A Milli” and “Lollipop” are Tha Carter III’s two lead singles, though, because they’re so perfectly opposite. The former is a four-minute rumble, all steamrolling punch lines and no chorus; the latter is nothing but chorus, with one punch line repeated over and over. I like “Lollipop,” but there’s something cynical about it. A virtuoso MC:

1) muffles his wit, foregoes his rhythmic acrobatics, essentially deep-sixes his virtuoso-MC-ness, 2) cribs a Blow-Pop-as-penis metaphor from 50 Cent, cribs the phrase “lady lumps” from Fergie, cribs a beat from Mims, cribs the rest from T-Pain, and 3) enjoys the biggest hit of his career for his not-very-much trouble.    

Which brings me here: After releasing a rough average of 137 brilliant mixtapes a day for the last two years (curious readers are advised to download standouts Dedication 2, Da Drought 3 and LilWeezyAna Vol. 1), the pressure was on Wayne to prove he could translate his gray-market genius to an old-fashioned, capital-A album. When rap heads draw a line between albums and mixtapes, I think the distinction they intend is between a cohesive collection of songs and a wild collection of ideas. So, did Lil’ Wayne pull it off on Tha Carter III? What are the demands of one medium versus the other, and how does Wayne balance them here? And, anyway, do we even want “songs” from Wayne, when the alternative (non-sequitur-rich, tangent-chasing, de-centered material like “Sportscenter,” “C.O.L.O.U.R.S,” “Dough is What I Got,” or “Live from the 504,” for example) is so fantastic?  

Oh, and while we’re at it, what’s your favorite track, and which one do you already skip?

Yours Trilli,  

Jonah

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