Weezy & Bun Killin ‘08

I’ll say it again, I love southern rap in all its beauty and ugliness and nobody embodies that more than L’il Wayne. His new album, The Carter III, just sold over a million copies in one week, which is impressive for any artist in this day and age of free internet downloads. The folks over at Pitchfork made an interesting point in describing Weezy as setting “the definition of a Web 2.0 emcee,” meaning that he has given away so much free music in the form of a gazillion downloadable mixtapes over the last couple of years that he totally amped up his image in the media, beefed up his lyrical skills, and amazingly, translated that into sales when he finally did drop his official album. It’s almost like people were so used to getting free music from Wayne that everyone decided buying his official release this time around as the least they could do to pay him back. Bananas. The homeboy Colin breaks down the Carter III a lot more in depthly and talks about Wayne’s relevance over at his blog.

While I don’t love the Carter III like I love the Carter II, I do like the album a lot. And definitely click on the image above to download one of those excellent aforementioned free mixtapes, Dj Benzi’s “None Higher” mix.

And while we’re on the topic of new southern rap, I am loving the new Bun B. album, II Trill. Did Bun just make the community organizer’s anthem for 2008 with, “If It Was Up To Me” (below)???

Weeziana

“I’m probably in the sky, flying with the fishes,
Or maybe in the ocean, swimming with the pigeons,
See my world is different,
Like Dwayne Wayne,
And if you want trouble, bitch, I want the same thing…”

~Lil Wayne, “Sky Is The Limit”

Lil Wayne does live in a different world than the rest of us. No question about it after seeing the man do his thing live in Monroe, Louisiana last week. He did everything from epic versions of “Sky’s The Limit” and “I Need A Hot Girl” to playing live guitar on “Leather So Soft.” It also helped that he was in his home state and the crowd (which was about 50/50 men and women, mostly high school and college kids) gave him much love. In turn, he gave the crowd much love and gratitude, on top of an energetic ass show. In this post-Katrina America, Weezy as a New Orleans rapper with New Orleans swag and pride has risen to a different level of the game. As he says on “Gossip”: “It rains a lot in my city cuz my city’s cryin’, cuz my city’s dyin’, but I emerge from all of that I am a livin’ pion, Neer, Zion…Fear God Not Them.”