Lil Wayne, "Drop the World" (2009)

what iz dis

never heard this song and it has 155 milli youtube views jeez. i guess i really forgot about dude post carter 3

Rapper Royce da 5'9" made a remix of the song entitled "Pick Ma Balls Up".[3]

I was going to say that the photos of nu metal Wayne with the guitar slung around his neck always made me laugh, then I Google Image Searched it and found dozens of racist (not to mention rockist) memes, so fukc it - classic

So there's no way to defend Rebirth w/o sounding like a complete contrarian, and overall it is a very bad album, but there are some moments on it. Always liked his voice on this song; it's one of the few times on the LP where his conviction feels real, not like a bad impression of a rocker.

I was going to say that the photos of nu metal Wayne with the guitar slung around his neck always made me laugh, then I Google Image Searched it and found dozens of racist (not to mention rockist) memes, so fukc it - classic

This is interesting b/c the record is more loaded with references to race than most of Wayne's stuff. It doesn't shy from the implications of its premise, a black guy playing white guy music. But I don't feel like critics ever really engaged with that aspect of the record, even though he gave them plenty to work with. They just wanted to LOL him for not really playing guitar.

Closer to "classic" than "dud," so I'm voting that, but I really hate Eminem's appearance.

yeah eminem is trash, there are much better songs on the record

i like the king lear, impotent rage of a dying man aspect of this song. wayne has always used hyperbole in original ways.

also just how wayne's verses are kind of like, sad and instrospective before he flies into a rage into the chorus. it's sort of scary.

Yeah, there's an immediacy to his songwriting (or lack thereof) on this album that sometimes flatters him when it isn't completely clumsy. My fav verse is probably on "American Star," which is about 10x simpler than anything else he was writing at the time:

Born and raised in the USA
By the way of New Orleans were the killers stay
But that’s okay… yeah… that’s alright
I’m loved and praised in the USA
My ancestors were slaves in the USA
But not todayyy… it’s alright ...
Dope boy with a guitar

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Classic, though yeah Em's verse doesn't work for me, overbearing.

As far as disliked later-Wayne projects I'd pick IANAHB2 for most underrated, including by me at the time.

haha wow, i remember having a kind of morbid fascination for this song when it came out. never thought it actually worked, but there's something about it that's kinda interesting...eminem's appearance indeed suffers from his post-rehab humorlessness (with the exception of Relapse's few bright moments and a BET cypher or two, has he turned in a single verse where he's not shouting and pissed off since?), but the bridge he enters with has a surprisingly nice melody to it. would've been a good moment if handled by someone else.

on the whole, just a really really weird song.

also lol @ how the "wayne when he was good..." comments have now caught up to his nu metal period

This album's bad (well what I've heard of it anyway, snippets/some songs were enough for me) but I don't agree with any clean "Wayne fell off" narrative, he's been up and down. Don't like either of his projects from this year and think 2012 was another bad year, but he's had stuff from the past couple years I like. Kinda bummed I don't like the stuff this year actually cuz I thought he stepped it up on the guest verses in the past year or so.

iirc this album is well beyond bad, i remember being completely appalled. lil wayne was the biggest rapper on earth at the time, and even as a move of hubris it just made no sense for him to be releasing such an relentlessly terrible and off-brand album like that. considering he followed it with an underwhelming stopgap album (IANAHB1) and then his new jersey (c4), it's no surprise that most people have written him off completely...

but i agree, if you pick and choose there's plenty good recent wayne to go around (as opposed to eminem, who i think has committed an unremitting violence against music ever since the last embers of his inspiration washed out in pockets of the deluxe Relapse). i loved "rich as fuck," he's a showstealer on the new tyler and rocky albums, some of his new would-be c5 tracks have had some A- verses, and i even enjoyed "love me" and "she will" as the pop singles they were. definitely got to cherrypick, though, and post-peak he's basically the '00s weezer to his '90s weezer.

It's funny cuz both Relapse and IANAHB2 were both albums I thought sucked when they dropped but now enjoy (well Relapse I need to be in a certain mood, but i "get" the vibe he was going for, unique flows compared to everything before/since & the accents allowing for off-kilter rhymes.) Recovery-and-on Em is very shouty and unpleasant though, yeah.

No particular relation besides two "past their prime" albums I think are dope. With IANAHB2 I think he does this controlled slow to fast flow really effectively on a bunch of tracks, + dope rawer production sound compared to the first one, Juicy J/Crazy Mike tracks being a good example.

imo Wayne's nadir was 2009-2011, so many fake deep slogans and grocery bag punchlines, so much laughing at his own jokes, hits that would've been hits with anybody on them. since them he's climbed out of that hole and never quite got back to peak level but has had a few pretty nice hot streaks. fun hearing him rap circles around Drake and Nicki on "Truffle Butter" and "Only."

the last part of his verse on "Truffle Butter" and the first part on "Only" are the best parts. I think.

I like C4 but yeah I can't deny some really bad lines on there, "tote tools like mechanics/mechanisms" being the most barely-a-punchline I remember. With 2012 it's just I don't remember liking his guest verses that year & think Dedication 4 has only a few dope tracks

xpost i still find Relapse very much a bad album (with some seriously inscrutable lapses in judgment...really weird extended concepts about abducting and murdering a teenage britney spears, or something? the entirety of the "we made you" song/video?), but yeah it does has some virtues, namely the ones you've mentioned. the "dr. west" opener shows what he was going for and could have framed a great return to form...imo the only real keepers, though, are "hello" (just knocks), "old time's sake" (great fun, but really wish he didn't do the dumb 'exotic' enunciation here or pretty much anywhere), "deja vu" (!), "crack a bottle" (some cringe lyrics but good overall, and maybe secretly 50 cent's greatest moment), "underground" (one of the last proper glimpses of slim shady, some hilarious lines and damn the meter is insane), "careful what you wish for," and "my darling" (basically treads water until 1:10, but once it gets into the headfuck inner-demon dialogue i think it's perhaps eminem's most interesting song and one that's really moving despite its ridiculousness; like "drug ballad," it's easily one of the most evocative songs about addiction that i've heard). really think "deja vu," "darling" and even "hello" outline an excellent "dark side" to a mediation on the rehab-relapse cycle, while stuff like "old time's sake," "crack a bottle," and "underground" convey what i imagine is the more irreverent and joyous (but no less depressing/ugly) side. basically cut all the dumb murder anthems and shock rap ("3 am," "insane," etc), turn in a few more songs that address the highs and lows of the record's titular theme, and it could've been something worthy of his heyday.

as a misstep, i don't think IANAHB2 had anywhere near this kind of potential for wayne, but yeah there are some nice moments on there for sure. wayne's always needed an editor, though, and i think as he got bigger and individual decisions seemed to matter less, he and his team just stopped caring (birdman being absent and unsupportive enough to merit litigation would seem to support this inference).

Yeah the stuff addressing or even just alluding to the addict/mental issues is more compelling than the other stuff you mentioned, well the celebrity stuff at least. I do like "Bagpipes from Baghdad" and "Medicine Ball" tho and I could see people viewing those as p dumb lol. "Taking My Ball" too if we include bonus tracks

IANAHB2, I get why people got on it lyrically, but I appreciate the no-fucks-given general vibe

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