Tha Carter III - can't stop listening to it!

It would be a cop out to say Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III defies definition, but it would also be foolish to try to box it up. This album is genius because Wayne draws on a broad range of musical, lyrical, cultural, and political traditions, creating art (music) that is unmistakably his own take on these elements. The album is thoughtful, danceable, energizing, and hilarious.

Now, there are certainly some things he says that piss me off (why does a woman always have to be your bitch?), make me cringe (“Call me so I can make it juicy for ya”), or go what the fuck?! (“Rodney King baby yeah I beat it like a cop”), but Lil Wayne wouldn’t have it any other way.

He loves to complicate things, to twist lyrics around in the middle of a phrase, and to tell us that he doesn’t care if we get it (all the while remaining in constant conversation with the public through the continued release of new rhymes to old songs). Although he ends the album with “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” samples, the album as a whole seems to be saying “you can’t pin me down!” He’s gonna be fast, he’s gonna slow it down, he’s gonna be hard and all about the money, he’s gonna be tender and want to be loved, and he’s gonna talk about humanity and blow jobs.

And that’s what I love about this album. Lil Wayne is always serious about his music, but he never once takes himself too seriously.

One of my favorite songs on the album is Don’t Get It. First off, he samples the Nina Simone song (“I’m just a soul whose intentions are good/oh lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood), evoking her gorgeous spirit. And then I love the way he enters into this conversation with Al Sharpton directly, but also with Don Imus, Congress, David Banner, Michael Eric Dyson and others by discussing the judgment of hip hop in the context of the inequities faced by black people in this country. He focuses on our (in)justice system and drug laws for a good part of the song.

Wayne then goes into a criticism of Sharpton and the kind of judgment laid on hip hop (Sharpton once proclaimed that hip hop lyrics needed to be more decent):

I mean, given the fact that humanity, well, good humanity rather
To me, is helpin one another, no matter your color or race
But this guy, and people like him
They'd rather speculate before they informate, if that's a word, heh heh
You know, spect before check, anyway
Mean that, I much rather you talk to me first and see if you
Can learn an opinion before you make one
Just my thought of good humanity, Mr. Sharpton (heh heh)

Wayne is rejecting the idea that there is a place for mass denunciations of hip hop without nuanced readings and efforts at deeper understanding. I can imagine he would tell the congressman in the Imus hearing to fuck off, because he doesn’t know shit about hip hop, and, more importantly, because he isn’t trying to know.

I am curious about those first two lines (“I mean, given the fact that humanity, well, good humanity rather/To me, is helpin one another, no matter your color or race”). I think Wayne is saying that we should be looking for ways to lift each other up, rather than to make judgments that bring us all down.

He also weighs in on our classroom conversation about binaries, perhaps personalizing DuBois’ insistence that the world is both ugly and beautiful by saying that we ourselves are both ugly and beautiful. In talking about Sharpton, he says:

But since I am human, I am good and bad as well
But I try my hardest to stay good
And some of the things I do and say may be bad, or just not too good
But I do try
So with that said, I don't fault you, I mean, you're only human
Good or bad, but I also don't respect you
And I don't care if that's good or bad, heh heh

If Wayne’s doing the best he can, that’s more than enough for me.