| NO SERIOUSLY, HE’S REALLY SORRY |
| Written by Rishbha Bhagi | |||
| Monday, 12 September 2011 01:31 | |||
 Lil Wayne's mixtape "Sorry 4 the Wait" was released as a kind of apology to his huge legion of fans for the continued delay of "Tha Carter IV," which has finally been released. Problems with the material his producers were giving him as well as his own personal problems, such as serving his prison sentence in Rikers Island for illegal weapons possession, caused "Tha Carter IV" to keep being delayed, and this mixtape is his formal recorded apology. Similar to his previous mixtape, "No Ceilings," "Sorry 4 the Wait" has Lil Wayne sampling other artists' beats and taking over their songs with his own raps. In "Sorry 4 the Wait," Lil Wayne is being Lil Wayne. The record is chockfull of his trademark I-just-woke-up-and-smoked-a-fat-one lazy rapping, his intriguing rhymes that make you do a double take and have to hear the line again because you can't believe that he just said that... oh, how we've missed you, Lil Wayne. In all seriousness, "Sorry 4 the Wait" is quite a bit underwhelming. Lil Wayne sounds extremely generic, almost like he becomes the rappers that he's sampling in his songs. In a way, that can be seen as him completely having a hold of the sampled song and making it his own, or it can be seen as him being so run-of-the-mill that you can't even tell who the original song belongs to. The choice is up to the listener. Of course, fans of Lil Wayne will love this mixtape, but "Sorry 4 the Wait" is definitely not a good vantage point for introducing a non-believer to Lil Wayne. For the most part, 99% of his rhymes just come off as being utterly remedial and played out, as if he is a first-time rapper taking a page out of the "How to be a Gangsta Rapper" handbook – unoriginal and painfully redundant, talking about the same drugs, sex, women, and bravado over and over again, in no new or innovative way. There are a few good lines in his songs, but overall he almost sounds contrived and uninterested, not offering up anything fresh. The thing about sampling other artists' songs that is often overlooked or ignored is that it is impossible to sample a track and use it as a blank slate for one's own song. There is always context and implied content that is carried over from the original song that is being sampled. This is doubly true when the entire song is being used a basis for a new song, as opposed to just a snippet being put on loop. If used correctly, it can make a beautiful mix with the new song; if used incorrectly, you're just left scratching your head wondering what the hell you just finished listening to. For the most part, the songs on "Sorry 4 the Wait" are decent when it comes to the matching of original and new context. But in some cases, Lil Wayne just misses it. The title track on Lil Wayne's mixtape is sampled with Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" (does that even seem like a good idea on paper?). Unfortunately, it just comes off as being the weirdest marriage of rap and pop with barely any cohesion throughout the entire track. Listening to Lil Wayne's eyeroll-inducing bravado and his continual apology of "sorry 4 the wait" paired with the thoughtful and wistful context of Adele's song makes the entire track sound like a confusing mess; he doesn't add anything new or even reflect anything from the original in his version of the song, and that causes the resulting track to be extremely lacklustre. However, when using Beyonce's "Run the World (Girls)" for the last track on the mixtape, Lil Wayne hits it much better and it actually works. The beat is much more complementary to his rapping style and his notion of him, obviously, running the world. Sure, his song veers off into him just yelling a bunch of random shoutouts and seemingly talking borderline gibberish to himself, but it's Lil Wayne – what do you expect? The truth of the matter is that it doesn't matter what the quality of the mixtape is – the poor guy does seem upset that people had to wait for so long for new material from him, and this mixtape is his way of giving a peace offering. And the main thing here is that no matter how doubtful of its quality some people may be, "Sorry 4 the Wait" is a must-have for any diehard Lil Wayne fan, if just for being another documented chapter of his chaotic personal life. I suppose one can note that compared to his other mixtapes and albums, he sounds a little more 'together', which obviously isn't saying much, but means a lot when you're talking about Lil Wayne. For what it's worth though, Lil Wayne truly sounds genuinely 'sorry 4 the wait,' as he mentions this numerous times throughout the record. Am I really the only one who could have waited for a lifetime more? For more info, check out: Lil Wayne Official Lil Wayne MySpace For more articles like NO SERIOUSLY, HE'S REALLY SORRY, please visit the Music/Album Features Section of TimesSquare.com
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