Tha Carter III

I was wondering if there's any album as perfect as Tha Carter III. This was Lil Wayne's much anticipated breakthrough album which was one of the best in 2008. God, what an album. For a rapper who had been in the game 10 years and who had released marginal hits every now and then and who put out hundreds of mixtapes, this album was far from what we were used to from Lil Wayne. This is also the last album where Lil Wayne is good. I don't know how else to put it, but it has some phenomenal rapping, but it was the beginning of Wayne's downfall. Shortly after, he fully assembled and introduced Young Money (*shudder* I hate Young Money). I'd like to blame Drake for ruining Lil Wayne. He's like Jay-Z; he's still amazingly dope, but he just can't rap as well as he used to. 

I recently re-listened to this album after reading and writing about Jim Jonsin, who produced "Lollipop" which was one of the first times we heard a non-T-Pain rapper using Auto-Tune. I had a friend in high school who had a really nice car with a bumpin' system and he would listen to this song a lot and I can remember how my brain shook after the heavy bass in this song rocked my head. Jonsin knows how to work with bass. "A Milli" which was the album's second single, is a steady badass rap similar to Lil Wayne's mixtape style. This song goes hard. "Let the Beat Build" uses an old soul sample and has some great rhymes mixed with a steady background vocal track, a piano track and a rolling drum clap. I almost wrote "this song has a Kanye West-esque soul sample" then I realized that he produced it. I like the matchup of Wayne and Kanye, honestly. They go well together. "Tie My Hands" featuring Robin Thicke is a sad reminder of Hurricane Katrina that had devastated Wayne's (and my) city three years prior to this album. "Phone Home" introduces Lil Wayne's weird, promethezine-fueled hallucinations of alien life. He believes he's a martian, what a nutcase. The beat in this song is sick, though. My favorite track hands down, is the hardest one: "You Ain't Got Nuthin'" featuring Fabolous and Juelz Santana. What a great trio of rappers, wow. It's just an amazing song. "La La" featuring Busta Rhymes and Brisco is pretty good, but not the best. The weakest song on the album is "Mrs Officer." I just never got into it.

This album is just so important. It made Lil Wayne the superstar he is now. I have such an emotional attachment to this album. It's definitely one of my favorites of all time.