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Lil Wayne spends so much of Sorry 4 the Wait, his new mixtape, rapping about guns and drugs and sex that it's easy to miss one telling little lyrical detail. Rapping over Rick Ross associate Gunplay's riotous bass-bomb "Rollin'", Wayne says, "I cut down on the syrup/ Now I'm in better shape." That qualifies as a big admission for Wayne. Back when he was on his historic mid-2000s mixtape rampage, Wayne's constant consumption of codeine cough syrup, a drug that has contributed to the death of more than a couple of Southern rap legends, was a genuine cause for concern. But Wayne's on parole now after serving eight months in Rikers Island. He has a whole lot of consequences in store if he gets caught with drugs anytime soon. Wayne's bottomless appetites once informed both his public persona and his firing-in-every-direction, mad-genius rap style. But on Sorry 4 the Wait, he sounds at least somewhat reserved and controlled; that sense that he could fly off into pure gibberish at any moment is gone. Unlike Dedication 2 or Da Drought 3, Sorry 4 the Wait sounds like the work of a mortal human being. Happily, that mortal human being still happens to be very good at rapping.
Wayne's actually having an excellent 2011. On Sorry 4 the Wait, he revives his old mixtape trick of rapping over a bunch of the songs currently tearing up rap radio. It feels a bit incomplete, though, since so many of those songs-- the ones conspicuously absent from the tape-- already feature Lil Wayne rapping on them: Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now", DJ Khaled's "I'm on One", Ace Hood's "Hustle Hard Remix", Wayne's own "6 Foot 7 Foot" and "John". On those tracks, Wayne sounds like a man possessed, completely missing the rust and out-of-time lostness that affects so many rappers just out of prison. (Wayne's time in prison was short, and it ended several months ago, which almost certainly has something to do with his relative freshness. Still, it's notable and impressive.)
Relative to those tracks, he sounds subdued and uncommitted through most of Sorry 4 the Wait. The title itself speaks to a certain just-fucking-around modesty; it's just a quick-and-dirty collection thrown out into the world to atone for all the delays in Tha Carter IV's release date. Compare that to his last mixtape, No Ceilings, its title itself an act of sky's-the-limit bravado. Even when Wayne dropped No Ceilings nearly two years ago, it seemed weirdly lazy and passe for an A-list rapper to drop a mix of freestyles and nothing else; after all, guys like Gucci Mane crank out entire tapes of fully realized songs at frightening speeds. But if Sorry 4 the Wait is a throwaway, it's an awfully fun one.
Occasionally, Wayne will come up with an extended piece of casual, free-associative lyrical inventiveness, like this one, from his version of Miguel's "Sure Thing": "Lord knows I'm a sinner/ Pain pills for dinner/ Bitch, I'm getting money like I got a money printer/ Got a chopper and a trimmer/ Shooting like Jimmer/ You're coming in that water, boy, you better be a swimmer." More often, though, he's letting off silly Drake-style hashtag-rap punchlines and sticking with blunt-but-effective Rick Ross rhyme patterns. And yet it mostly works, because it's just a blast to hear him having fun for 41 minutes straight instead. He can get overwhelmingly self-aggrandizing: "My girl pussy feel like heaven to a god." He can get goofily puerile, using Drake's gorgeously conflicted sensitive synth-rap confession "Marvin's Room" to bust off some irreverently nasty sex talk: "She take it every way except personal." He indulges in plenty of singsong cadence, but all of it sounds like rapping, and none of it comes with the Auto-Tune he kept using for too long. When Lil B, a stylistic descendant in many ways, shows up on a freestyle of Waka Flocka Flame's "Grove St. Party", Wayne sounds comparatively focused-- and "focused" isn't a word I would've used to describe Wayne at any point over the last couple of years. Even on autopilot, as he often is here, Wayne sounds like a man reawakened and re-energized.
The most-fun part of the mixtape doesn't really have anything to do with rapping at all. The final track is a six-minute non-rapping rant over the clipped, fired-up dancehall of Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)" (itself a flip of Major Lazer's "Pon De Floor"). Wayne's track is a sort of extended multi-tracked ad-lib, with a whole mob of Waynes yelling incoherently throughout. One of those Waynes yells about all the things going right with his life right now: "I am happy! I'm in love! I'm in love! I picked up a new hobby! I make way too much money! My kids are growing up healthy and beautiful and intelligent! My mom's getting married! Congratulations!" Another Wayne shouts out an endless parade of random people. Still another indulges in some pure non-sequitur ridiculousness: "Rest in peace John F. Kennedy! Rest in peace Marilyn Monroe!" The tape is an encouraging indication that even a cleaned-up Wayne has plenty of insanity left in him. And I, for one, hope that insanity is all over Tha Carter IV.
— Tom Breihan, July 27, 2011
Wayne's actually having an excellent 2011. On Sorry 4 the Wait, he revives his old mixtape trick of rapping over a bunch of the songs currently tearing up rap radio. It feels a bit incomplete, though, since so many of those songs-- the ones conspicuously absent from the tape-- already feature Lil Wayne rapping on them: Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now", DJ Khaled's "I'm on One", Ace Hood's "Hustle Hard Remix", Wayne's own "6 Foot 7 Foot" and "John". On those tracks, Wayne sounds like a man possessed, completely missing the rust and out-of-time lostness that affects so many rappers just out of prison. (Wayne's time in prison was short, and it ended several months ago, which almost certainly has something to do with his relative freshness. Still, it's notable and impressive.)
Relative to those tracks, he sounds subdued and uncommitted through most of Sorry 4 the Wait. The title itself speaks to a certain just-fucking-around modesty; it's just a quick-and-dirty collection thrown out into the world to atone for all the delays in Tha Carter IV's release date. Compare that to his last mixtape, No Ceilings, its title itself an act of sky's-the-limit bravado. Even when Wayne dropped No Ceilings nearly two years ago, it seemed weirdly lazy and passe for an A-list rapper to drop a mix of freestyles and nothing else; after all, guys like Gucci Mane crank out entire tapes of fully realized songs at frightening speeds. But if Sorry 4 the Wait is a throwaway, it's an awfully fun one.
Occasionally, Wayne will come up with an extended piece of casual, free-associative lyrical inventiveness, like this one, from his version of Miguel's "Sure Thing": "Lord knows I'm a sinner/ Pain pills for dinner/ Bitch, I'm getting money like I got a money printer/ Got a chopper and a trimmer/ Shooting like Jimmer/ You're coming in that water, boy, you better be a swimmer." More often, though, he's letting off silly Drake-style hashtag-rap punchlines and sticking with blunt-but-effective Rick Ross rhyme patterns. And yet it mostly works, because it's just a blast to hear him having fun for 41 minutes straight instead. He can get overwhelmingly self-aggrandizing: "My girl pussy feel like heaven to a god." He can get goofily puerile, using Drake's gorgeously conflicted sensitive synth-rap confession "Marvin's Room" to bust off some irreverently nasty sex talk: "She take it every way except personal." He indulges in plenty of singsong cadence, but all of it sounds like rapping, and none of it comes with the Auto-Tune he kept using for too long. When Lil B, a stylistic descendant in many ways, shows up on a freestyle of Waka Flocka Flame's "Grove St. Party", Wayne sounds comparatively focused-- and "focused" isn't a word I would've used to describe Wayne at any point over the last couple of years. Even on autopilot, as he often is here, Wayne sounds like a man reawakened and re-energized.
The most-fun part of the mixtape doesn't really have anything to do with rapping at all. The final track is a six-minute non-rapping rant over the clipped, fired-up dancehall of Beyoncé's "Run the World (Girls)" (itself a flip of Major Lazer's "Pon De Floor"). Wayne's track is a sort of extended multi-tracked ad-lib, with a whole mob of Waynes yelling incoherently throughout. One of those Waynes yells about all the things going right with his life right now: "I am happy! I'm in love! I'm in love! I picked up a new hobby! I make way too much money! My kids are growing up healthy and beautiful and intelligent! My mom's getting married! Congratulations!" Another Wayne shouts out an endless parade of random people. Still another indulges in some pure non-sequitur ridiculousness: "Rest in peace John F. Kennedy! Rest in peace Marilyn Monroe!" The tape is an encouraging indication that even a cleaned-up Wayne has plenty of insanity left in him. And I, for one, hope that insanity is all over Tha Carter IV.
— Tom Breihan, July 27, 2011
Honestly reading this review, somes up my opinion of it .. it's a decent mixtape with a couple of flaws and thats that.
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