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Originally Posted by Severian
Yeah, same. It's all gotten quite pathetic at this point. I truly believe that Wayne had his moment, and that he was probably the best in the game for a bit. But somehow he got the idea that he was like... something the world would never be able to live without. Seriously, I think that happened because he just won't stop trying to be Mr. Hip-Hop, even though it's obvious to everyone but him that the game has changed so much that nobody even expects anything from him anymore.
He made a few really good albums, one great album, a few good to great tapes, and some unforgettable guest spots.
The only thing that separates Wayne from any other rapper who briefly held the title is that Wayne went ahead and released 20 albums full of absolute shit, while most of the other folks realize their time is up and either fade into cult-level obscurity to fiddle with their formula, or they just fucking give up!
His battle with Birdman/Ca$h Money (which nobody cares about) is just a way to stay in the headlines. Nobody cares about The Carter 5. Nobody cares about freeing Weezy. He needs to accept that he is not a high artist of hip hop. He never really had that in him. He's more of a personality and a presence and a brand.
Which is fine! That's what Snoop Dogg is, and Snoop's made it work. He has a few straight classics, but he's mostly just a cartoon character. Wayne needs to just accept that that's where his career and his decisions have taken him. At least Snoop seems to understand that Kendrick Lamar is the real deal now. I look at the cover of No Ceilings 2 and I just want to laugh at how utterly out of touch Wayne actually is with the current hip hop landscape.
For what it's worth, I think Jeezy is aging with more grace than Wayne.
Fuck it.
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the fucked up thing - in hindsight - is that Rebirth is the album that everyone hated when it came out. (Well, not me). But if you look at it in his discography now, it's the last time he really took a chance and did something interesting and ballsy. We can debate how successful it was - but at least he was trying TRYING to do something different.
I'll contend there's good stuff post Carter-III... IANAHB, Carter IV, even the first Young Money album, No Ceilings... but I mean, he's put out a harddrive full of material since and so much of it was on autopilot "I aleady proved myself so why bother trying?" mode.
Ultimately he created a body of work so vast that the bad has outweighed the good which is totally unfortunate considering how good the good was.