It’s hard for me to describe my unconditional love for Lil Wayne. I’m not the biggest rap fan in the world, and my favorites (MF DOOM, The Streets) tend to roam along the outskirts of the rap game. So it took all sorts of universal acclaim for “Tha Carter III” before I finally picked it up for a long car trip across the desert.

What struck me then, and keeps me coming back, is how unapologetic Wayne is. Many rappers play up the “I don’t give a fuck” image to a malicious end: all haters are going to be convinced by way of a lead salad. Lil Wayne, on the other hand, doesn’t care if you think he’s the greatest or not; he just is the greatest.

And that voice. That disgusting, phlegmy wheeze. If Snoop Dogg spat “Swagger tighter than a yeast infection/fly and go hard like geese erection”, it’d be so smooth we’d probably not even notice just how absurd the rhyme is. But because we hear it from the voice of a suspect on Law and Order SVU, it comes across as goofy, and, hell, even a bit sincere. And that’s the reason I think Lil Wayne can pull it all off.

He’s absurd, and he’s unlikely, but he’s having one helluva time.

And I can’t fault him for it.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Chapter 1.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.