The other breakout star from his Young Money adventure, Drake, doesn’t make an appearance due to reported scheduling issues. “I am not number one, it’s true/I am 9-27-82,” he says in reference to his birthday on “Don’t Cry.” When one of his Young Money students, Nicki Minaj, croons alongside him on the yearning “Dark Side of the Moon,” it sounds bittersweet. He has rarely sounded as vulnerable as he does here. The Lil Wayne who appears here sounds chastened, questioning his current standing in the rap lexicon. Still, the tumult of years passed undoubtedly left its mark.
Lil Wayne is back on center stage, back on top. It doesn’t matter that his first retail album since 2013’s desultory, depressing I Am Not a Human Being II is haphazardly sequenced, with the best tracks arriving somewhere in the middle and the end, and that its 87 minute running time can barely be consumed in one sitting. His place on rap’s postmillennial Mount Rushmore is assured. He is as much of a hero to a certain generation of rap fans as Jay Z and Rakim once were. If the celebratory reception surrounding the long-delayed Tha Carter V proves one thing, it is how much Lil Wayne is truly beloved.
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