How Lil Wayne Made a Timeless Album

Lil Wayne is a very smart individual who knows how to work everything into his advantage. His album is more thought out then most people would notice. 

Wayne was signed onto Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label at the age of nine and went on to be the flagship artist for the record label. This is where Wayne met his long time mentor Birdman who was the co-founder and public face of Cash Money Records, they even released an album together called “Like Father Like Son”. That’s why it was unexpected when Birdman wouldn't allow the release of Tha Carter V and Lil Wayne announced a $51 million lawsuit to get out of his contract, three years later the album was finally released. 

Even though his album was postponed many times, he worked that into his marketing and this album was hands down his most anticipated album to be released, also being the first non-Cash Money release ever. 

The album opens with an emotional introduction spoken by Lil Wayne’s mother expressing her admiration for her son, and praising him for getting through everything he's been through. This sets the tone for the album and humanizes him, it reminds everyone that if you've been keeping up with Wayne, you know he's been through a lot to put out this album. His mother reappears in the second to last song where she talks about an incident where Wayne had accidentally shot himself with a gun when he was twelve. She speaks about how she didn't even know if it was an accident or not which foreshadows the rest of the album where we learn the truth. 

In a song called “Let It All Work Out” Wayne finally admits that his “accidental” shooting was actually a suicide attempt. This was a very big controversy, and for years up until this album release people assumed it was an accident. Wayne essentially built of his biggest controversy and worked it into his new album to have people keep talking about. 

Theres a song “The Dark Side of The Moon” featuring Nicki Minaj which was revealed to have been recorded in 2015, which is very easy to believe since Nicki Minaj sounds like how she did in her 2014 record “Pills n’ Potion”. Its said that he rewrote and rerecorded a lot of the songs to make them more current but by leaving some songs as they were three years ago, it reminds the listener that this album was heavily worked on for a long time.

In the second song on the album he uses a sample of XXXtentacion singing, XXX was a very popular up and coming artist who was gaining popularity everyday. He was shot and killed on June 2018, and this created mass hysteria among his fans and any one in the hip hop scene. Tha Carter V was released shortly after XXX’s death, by putting him on the album this also creates more traction and keeps people talking about the album since it has one of XXX’s last recorded songs. 

Tha Carter V was a well thought out project, by dragging out the release date, it had people talking about it. This album will be talked about in future generations, not only because of the music aspect but also because of all the emotions attached to it. Wayne was smart in adding elements to the album that would keep people talking about it even after its release.