The Green Olive Yuk

Victor September 21st, 2008

In his first column for the Green Olive Yuk, DJ Victamone, takes a deep look at rapper Lil Wayne.

“I want to be bonging beers and chiefin’ blunts to some WAYNE. Not T-Pain or Robin Thicke.”

-DJ Victamone

Lil Wayne. Epic name, epic game, epic rapper. I’ve been a Wayne fan ever since I can remember. Remember “Shine”? Back when Weezy was a Hot Boy. Or how about in 04′ when he dropped the first Carter. “BM JR” and “Go Dj”. Most the tracks on this album were produced by Mannie Fresh which is why I believe even 5 years later anything Mannie Fresh puts his hands on is pretty legit to call fire. Wayne’s style is forever memorable. I’m not a Weezy-ass-kiss what so ever but it’s true. Even in his early career it was easy to see that he was doing something different. I liked it. Or better yet, I was down.

Then came the second Carter. Imagine anything Weezy did before, and times it by 100. I remember my brother giving me his CD in 2005 around Christmas time. I didn’t touch it right away because that’s just how us Mercado’s do it. If someone gives you music, you don’t actually listen to it till you’re alone. That way you can study it, understand it, and feel it.

Don’t get me wrong though. There’s times I hear a song that I’ve never heard before and instantly go, “holy shit Black Taylor or [insert random name here], where’d you get this? What’s the name? When did it come out?” But in order to truly understand it, it’s best heard completely alone.

Anyways. I digress. “Tha Carter II” is one of my absolute favorite albums of all time(that’s huge). I liked it better then the retail version of “Tha Carter III”. Before you jump and say “WTF DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE LOLLIPOP OR A MILLI OR BLAH BLAH” let me explain myself.

The Carter II had the Lil Wayne flow I began to understand and love. “Hustler Musik”, “Money On My Mind”, “Fireman”, “Receipt”, “Grown Man”, the list goes on. This is the Lil Wayne I thrived on. He was the man. It was better then most CD’s at the time, period. Anything on this album was fire. The beats, his verses, anything. It’s hard to describe but just keep in mind that this is style of Lil Wayne that I had grown accustomed to. No voice synths, not a ridiculous amount of “guest stars”, and no ringtones.
After “Tha Carter II” Weezy didn’t release any “REAL” solo albums until “Tha Carter III”. He made an album with Birdman, “Like Father, Like Son” which was EXTREMELY good. But I’m not going to mention it here because it’s not him alone.

In between Carter II and Carter III he released CRAP-TON of mixtapes and was a guest rapper on just about any hot rap song at the time. This was probably the greatest marketing strategy since MJ started changing skin color.

While he was working on “Tha Carter III” he released multiple mixtapes so that his fans had something to listen to. Free of charge, downloadable off the internet or you could buy it for a couple bucks out of someones trunk. (not in minot though, ha).

Da Drought, Da Drought 2, Da Drought 3, Da Drought 4, Dedication, Prefix, Suffix, The Leak, The Leak 2, etc. Honestly I didn’t even mention a few because no one cares. But it’s the point. He has tons of stuff that most people haven’t even heard. Ever. Most people watch MTV and VH1 and live life off of it. Almost all of my favorite Lil Wayne songs ever come off these albums, and swear by them.

“I Feel Like Dying”, “6 minutes of death”, “La La La”, “Brand New”, “I Took Her”, “Need Some Quiet”, “Ask Them Hoes”, “So Many Places”, “Mr. Postman”, “Crack House”, Time To Give Mine”, “Pussy Money Weed”, “One Night Only”, “Something You Forgot”, it GOES ON!!!

These songs are incredible. And I mean incredible as in some of my favorite songs of ALL TIME. If your a fan of Weezy and have no idea what I’m talking about right now, then I have to break some news to you. You ain’t bout shit. Sit down with me and have a beer and we can listen and talk weezy for hours. Anyways, back to where I was originally heading.

The Carter III was originally supposed to be out in December of 07′. I remember waiting. This was going to be the greatest album of all time. I remember sitting with my best friends Harry and Brandon talking about how Lil Wayne was single handedly taking the rap game by storm. And it was true.

One day before I went to bed I checked my “sources” to see if there were any new Weezy stuff out. There it was. “Carter III Mixtape”. I freaked out. I downloaded it and I stayed up till it was done. I finally got to hear it.

I was confused. I had heard so many of these songs before in all the prior mixtapes and it kinda got me mad that he recycled so many. But I learned to embrace it. The average person hadn’t heard most of these before, so in all honesty, I was fine with it. If it’s a good song, it’s a good song. It’s better then putting all new stuff that is just “okay” or “decent”… but WAIT! That’s a funny line.

About a week after the DL of this mixtape and telling all my friends “Yeah I got that shit already you know!!!” I noticed at work (Best Buy) that the release of Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” was postponed…… till March. I was lost. I guess he decided to put out all new songs instead of recycling some of the older ones so that he could make a legitimate “CD”. That made the version of Carter III I had nothing. Technically, another Mixtape.

It was okay with me. More Lil Wayne was fine with me. Anything he puts out is amazing. March came around and guess what? POSTPONED! He got arrested so that took out of his studio time. What can you say though? Average rapper I guess. June 10th was the set date. At about this time Lollipop was about the greatest single on the market at the time. White people, Indians, PuertoRricans, black people, and just about everyone else united for this jam. Then came the day…
I remember being so excited and pumping everyone I knew up with how amazing the “Tha Carter III” was going to be. I was very excited. I listened to the CD the second it came out. I didn’t skip any tracks. I didnt fast foward anything. I let it play.

A good friend of mine, Josh, who is a musician himself, always told me, “Don’t judge a CD by how good a single song is, but how good that album is from start to finish”. I applied that theory to every album since that. My reaction? I loved it.

I thought it was an amazing CD. “A Milli”, “Let the beat build”, “3peat”, “Mrs. Officer”, “Comfortable(recycled)”, “Mr. Carter”, “You ain’t got nothing”. It had tons of killer tracks on the CD. The only problem is I found myself skipping tracks because they were too slow, or too annoying. It wasn’t the kind of Lil Wayne I had learned to love and thrive on. There were a few problems that I had noted. But it was probably one the best rap CD’s I had heard since Kanye West’s “Graduation”<–scoop that shit if you haven’t already. But it still left a whole bunch to be desired.
I’m sure you’re wondering “What was wrong with Tha Carter III”?

• Voice Synth. I love Lil Wayne. When he does cool things like voice synth I was all about it. But I don’t believe it’s something to base part of an album off of. I would have preferred more straight Weezy tracks. He didn’t seem to go hard enough on some of the tracks. I do like the songs though, they were very creative.

• - More guest rappers and artists then ever. It helps sell an album and it’s definitely awesome when people collab, but compared to the first two carters there were ALOT of guests.

• - WTF is up with all the slow shit? I want a upbeat Weezy beat. I want to be bonging beers and chiefin’ blunts to some WAYNE. NOT Tpain or Robin Thicke.

Honestly, that’s all I could say negatively about “Carter III”. It was a very good CD. But this is where my main comparison comes into play. Anything you’ve read until this point has been a basic pre-blog.

The Carter III could have been a much more epic CD if he would have put out the tracks from Da Drought 4/Carter III Mixtape. These tracks were more “Old School Wayne”.

There isn’t much of a difference between old and new Wayne except new Wayne is trying new things, which I like. Don’t ever think that I don’t like anything new Lil Wayne is putting out. I just believe that the transition from old to new was too swift, and we never really had a “last” old school style CD from him.

I believe if he would have used the tracks from Da Drought 4/Carter III Mixtape it would have been a nice closing to his old school ways and the ways he did things. He still has the same style, and his flows are probably even better then when he was younger because after all: with time and age comes knowledge. But when you compare some of the last songs he put out before “Carter III” with the songs from “Carter III” you can definitely see that there was a change in things.

I personally believe that the tracks before “Tha Carter III” but after “Tha Carter II” were his best songs ever recorded. This doesn’t mean that they will forever remain the best. But I’d have to say the best for now. If he would have put out his original “Carter III Mixtape” as the real Carter III, I think it would have made one of the best CD’s of all time. Then after that, he could have completely switched his style and did a “Carter IV”.

Anyways. What is the point of all this? What am I getting at? I don’t know.
I hope I may have entertained your brain for a while though.

dj victamone out.

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