Official C5 haters

[jhoya101]

I agree with the whole first part of what you said. Very much so. The only thing I beg to differ on is this: Carter V was as close to a classic as I think it ever could have been. Of course everyone defines classic differently. But let's be dead honest with each other: Short of releasing a complete retread to 07 flow, nobody in music was gonna consider C5 a classic. And even if he DID that, there would still be haters like "when this nigga gonna grow up?! this supposed to be his career topping farewell record! wtf!"

you know it as well as I do!

So basically there were 3 ways Wayne could've gone about C5:

1- copy his 2006-08 style verbatim and create an absolute fan favorite, a probably critical favorite, but risk being called "stuck in the past". Also, he would be going against his natural inclination and stunting his development (no pun intended on stunting!)

2- he could've released the 2014 version which was dope lyrically, but he still had a lot of his old, IANAHB/D4-5 bad habits on some tracks. Any true Wayne fan can hear this. Newer fans would love it, half his old fans would hate it, and critics would likely pan it like they panned all his similar mixtapes. Even S4TW2 and FWA got mixed reviews, and they were dope for the time.

3- he could go for a career spanning epic, more concise than 2014 version, but more streamlined too. It would include substantial stretches of almost athletic verbal feats of rapping, but also some of the most heartfelt and painful stuff he's ever committed to record. It would satisfy most old fans, a lot of new fans, critics would love it, and it would go platinum even in 2018. And it did.

Clearly, scenario #3 is what we got. C5 doesn't have tracks like Form Good, Holy... Scottie Pippen's closest comparison, I guess, is Dedicate. But even Dedicate, there was no fat on the bone! That's what C5 was all about. It was a lean, heat seeking missile. At any given moment, if it was delivering dope rapping acrobatics (Let it Fly), insane storytelling (Mona Lisa), syrupy balladry (Perfect Strangers), pure banger (Uproar), emotional epic (Let It All Work Out), it did its job perfectly.

Some people seem to love to make the argument that this caused the album to be soulless or "boring". I couldn't disagree more. I love a mixtape weezy style free for all as much as any of you... in fact, that might even be my favorite side of Wayne (when done correctly). But tbh, we still got that, but it was caged by song structure. And you know what? That discipline really didn't hurt Wayne. After D6/6R I was honestly burnt out on no-hook free styling at that double time speed of his. I love the project overall, but I gotta be honest and say it was a breath of relief to see that Wayne could still make SONGS in a more traditional sense. And I always marveled at the quality control of C5, as I've stated endlessly on this forum since the album came out.

Some of my biggest gripes about Wayne since he got out of prison have been nonstop gratuitous nonsense about his goons and whatever else, constant references to his dick and how wet his girl's pussy is, not being confident enough to call himself the best rapper alive anymore and prove it again, the grating childish flow of the D4-5/IANAHB2 days, etc. On C5 he either did away with those things, or honed them to hilarious perfection.

Open Safe and STSOR are the closest C5 comes to the word-drunk, goofy Wayne we all love, but sometimes I think: Any more than that might have been weird. Maybe for another project, but somehow not C5. If that makes sense.

I think a lot of people give Mack and Tez a hard time for trying to give C5 a theme and structure. Mack especially. This dude probably had the job of sitting there listening to shit, and having to tell LIL FUCKING WAYNE "we gonna have to redo these few lines, because a lyric about your cock being a cyclops ain't gonna read well on a career swan song album". And Wayne obliged him! Also, I think it's interesting that Mack wanted to put out 1 or even 2 more volumes, which I'm sure was so the bangers and goofy but dope stuff could see the light of day under the official C5 title... but it was WAYNE who shot that down. So Wayne made the decision to keep C5 a much more serious affair overall.

But let's be fair. Even on a serious affair we all still enjoyed batshit crazy lyrics like:

Your bitch ashy, she keep a ashtray wit her.

Federalés on my ass, fucking had a boat chase, nigga!

Liz, that's enough you could put your hands down!

Shoot him in the head, bad hair day.

I been riding round the city with the safety off... Glock 9, and it's pretty like a baby doll

Shoot ya in ya head, give ya ass three eyes
And you still ain't seen a fucking thing until you see five/C5

I ain't kidding, I ain't playing (I ain't Kid and I ain't Play), fuck up your house party (House Party)

Second line, second line, Tunechi got effective lines
Rough edges like a box of Checker fries, that's a line

I'm smoking 'icky, watching Ricky Lake
I got a lawyer that turn any case into a pillow case

Money in the air, who said white men can't jump?

Blunt big, big as mama June off the diet plan

Go retarded as shit, you go sweet tangy
I go tart on this shit, I'ma barf on this shit

'Cause like Bart, you a simp, And your water don't drip so your garden ain't shit
You just countin' the money, I'm drownin' in money like "Where the fuck is the lifeguard in this bitch?!!"

Now, that's just a few crazy-ass, old school, laugh out loud Wayne bars that popped into my mind. There's a fucking treasure trove more where that came from on C5 and y'all know it too. I think maybe the fact that the beats were usually pretty dark, and the fact that almost every song has seriousness to it makes it seem like it's a humorless affair. But it isn't.

And here's the fucked up conclusion: On C5 Wayne delivered exactly what most of y'all been asking him to do for fucking 8 years. Nigga does it, and y'all want what you told him to stop doing. smh

Stop hating, people. Be grateful you got an official classic. And if you arrange these outtakes just right, you got an unofficial classic. A horse of a different color. And as much as it's tempting to consider this "the OG C5" or "the original vision", rest assured... IT AINT THAT. These are dope songs, but they're outtakes. That's why Wayne didn't redo any of these lyrics in 2018 (that we know of). That's why these songs ain't on C5. Not on an album = outtakes.

I see what u sayin. I just feel like there had to have been a better 22 songs than what we got.

Like u can’t tell me those were the best 22 songs he recorded in the past 5-6 years. It just can’t be

Half the album was recorded a week or so before release

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Now some of them new records were good tho. Uproar and let it fly are instant classics to me

[no_tom&jerry]

For me, there were a lot of instant classics on there. And the whole thing hung together better than most previous albums of his. In fact, it's probably the closest to a "concept album" he has. Wayne spent years and years getting panned by critics and fans alike for doing what was coming natural to him (for better or worse, often both in the space of a year!) So he turned in a C5 that focused more on nuance and darkness. Even the lightest moments are bathed in darkness (Let it Fly, Open Safe, Mona Lisa, Hittas, Dedicate).

What I don't understand is how most of y'all here over the years have been bitching that he needs to stop with the immature bullshit and focus on doing something serious that won't tarnish his legacy. He does exactly that, purging the entire record of his worst habits to the point that he was punching in (that's a recording term) to alter single lines and even words, all so they would serve the larger purpose of fulfilling the promise he made with C5.

I've had the same damn complaints too, but I appreciated it when he got himself in check long enough to put out at least one more classic album with C5.

Maybe it needed a few more bangers or freestyle tracks, that's a personal opinion. Like I said before, I wouldn't be mad at LOMC being on there, because it definitely fit the vibe. I FUCKING LOVE Scottie Pippen, Take It Slow, Holy and a few others... but I can understand why they didn't make the cut. It doesn't mean they're not as good as what was on there; it means C5 wasn't a fucking mixtape, it was an album. And sometimes when working on an artistic endeavor you have to leave behind good things because they just don't fit.

Case in point: if you're a Kanye fan, look at Dark Twisted Fantasy. That album was designed to be absolute perfection. There was an iTunes bonus track called "See Me Now" with a Beyonce hook. It was a great fucking song! Sounded like Graduation era Kanye! But he very wisely did not put it on the dark fantasy album. Why? Because it had a completely different vibe than the other tracks. That was a very minor-key album, for lack of a better term, and See Me Now would've stuck out like a sore thumb and altered the listening experience drastically. Doesn't matter how dope it was. When you're an artist of any kind, you have to have a sense of these things. (Side note: in 2009-2010 you remember hashtag rapping was all the rage? Kanye did not allow it in his Dark Fantasy sessions, stating "We're going for something higher with this." That's on par with Wayne & Co. flushing out all the C5 dick jokes and childish moments.)

Back on track, though: Kanye is a master of knowing when something will or will not work. Look at Yeezus. He knew Bound 2 would stick out, and it would be an ironic statement to include at the end of an industrial EDM rap album which had more in common with In Utero than Dark Twisted Fantasy. This was a well placed, well timed wink-wink from the artist to his audience. Something like See Me Now as the "Poof!" magic trick final track on Dark Fantasy would've fallen flat. It was not the right album, not the right song, and not the right moment. A good artist knows.

Stick with Kanye yet again! Fast forward to 2016. Life of Pablo comes out, inasmuch as that album could "come out". Kanye created it in such a way that it didn't matter what he put on it. He could sit songs like I Miss the Old Kanye next to Waves next to Facts next to Wolves next to the Silver Surfer intermission! It didn't matter. It was an intentional mashup of different Kaynes as presented to the world. Again, would this have worked on any other album before it? Nope. Kanye's excellent sense and artistic prowess dictated that he would be able to do whatever he wanted on that album, because that's how he established the tone of the overall record.

Carter 5 required a great deal of Kanye-esque restraint and pruning to deliver a very specific vision. To reiterate: this was no mixtape. This was Tha Carter V. I think many of us have grown so used to these specific tenets and expectations of Wayne albums -- Carter ones especially. The commitment to the artistic vision of C5 is one of the things I love most about the album. It's like everybody wants this Costco version of Wayne all the time, where he gives everybody literally EVERYTHING everyone wants at all times. Fuck that. He wanted to make a statement. And he did so WITHOUT compromising the fun and lightness -- it's in there if you look, btw. Just remember how excited y'all were when you first were salivating over those dope bars in Let it fly, Mona Lisa, Can't Be Broken and all the other ones y'all now take for granted.

[Mbader20]

Both are good, but i wish Lomc was on there, and the OG open letter is fire too

[-_-]

I thank da' lord everyday for the 18' c5