![]() But it feels sort of stapled-on and unnecessary, like Wayne's bringing Jay in just because he can, making sure to get two verses in before Jay's voice comes in. Wayne's calm and assured, rasping hard and ruminative, still kicking out random boasts that don't make much sense: "Got summer hating on me cuz I'm hotter than the sun / Got spring hating on me cuz I ain't never sprung." The Jay-Z appearance on the track is basically rap's ultimate status symbol you have to have serious pull to get that guy on your album anymore. Still, I believe it it's got that stately, beautifully realized classicist NY thing going for it, sped-up soul-sample on the hook and everything. ![]() Wikipedia says this is a Just Blaze track, but it doesn't have Just's usual frantic intensity, and nobody screams Just's name on it. He fails completely, stammering and resorting to total stoner-logic. Carter." On the intro, Wayne tries to explain that he feels big and what exactly that means. He barely even notices anyone beyond himself.Ģ. The hype and pressure mean nothing to him. And this track is full of nonsensical boasts: "They cannot see me like Hitler"? And so the point is that there is no point Wayne's using this album to take us into his randomly-generated free-associative headspace. ![]() He doesn't tell us anything else about getting shot he just moves on to the next nonsensical boast. He also says this: "Two more inches, I'd have been in that casket / According to the doctor, I could've died in traffic." Usually when rappers mention near-death experiences, it's to prove that they're still here for a reason, that they've got a world to take over think "Through the Wire." But with Wayne, it's a context-free aside. By the end of the track, though, he's talking wistfully about rescuing his mother from poverty and buying her a house, so I guess he's pro-family after all. But all that purpose in Wayne's voice leads nowhere because he refuses to stick to a topic, to rap about any one thing or put forth any one big idea beyond, like "It's me!" Wayne starts out hard and violent and nihilistic, threatening to kill your grandmother and kidnap your kid and **** your baby's mother. Wayne, finally, has purpose in his voice it's a strained creak, not the indolent, stoned mutter he's been using way too often on his diminishing-returns mixtape tracks lately. Maestro throws epic Runners synth-churns and gut-shaking 808 drum-whumps on top of it, but really, Wayne might as well be rapping over just that minimal, evocative Glass **** here. It sounds like light glinting off a glass skyscraper when you're standing right at the building's base, looking straight up, unable to quite make out where the wall stops climbing. Either way, those slow-motion string-burbles do the same work they do in the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV: they give this impression that something really, really big is coming our way, something so big that they can't quite hint at what exactly it is, just that it's big. Or I'm pretty sure it does, but I'm really bad at spotting samples. Maestro's beat samples Philip Glass's score to Koyaanisqatsi. There will be more to say when I'm done with this, but this seems like a good a way as any to get a handle on something this big.ġ. And so I thought I'd basically rip off Brandon Soderberg's Kanye West Week idea and just really sink my teeth into this album, taking it a track at a time, five tracks a day, for the rest of the week. For the past few days, I've just been drunk on the thing, playing it constantly. It's not a perfect album, maybe, but there's a whole lot going on there, and for my money it disproves the idea that Wayne doesn't know how to make songs. Anyway, and this will shock absolutely nobody, I love the thing. Usually, after all, a leak a week and a half before the album's release is a best-case scenario. Or maybe the thing just leaked the same way every big rap album does somewhere along the food chain, someone tried to make a few extra bucks. Apparently Wayne pissed off some mixtape DJs, and then the mixtape DJs leaked the album. The Carter III that's out there in the ether is probably the Carter III we're getting. ![]() Maybe Wayne will do that thing he was talking about where all these younger rappers will spit over "A Milli" I hope so. Maybe there will be another track or two. Or, anyway, it's out in leaked form, which will probably look a whole lot like the finished product that'll hit stores next week. Pretty solid detail on a track-by-track basis. ![]()
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