Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Lil Wayne is 41 years old and he just dropped his 29th mixtape, “The Fix Before Tha VI,” as an amuse bouche ahead of the release of his 14th studio album, “The Carter VI.” Weezy is putting out a ton of great work at an advanced age for an M.C., and he still raps like his life is an endless party. I mean, the man is creating so much that he must be basically living in the studio. And yet his rhymes paint a picture of a man-child who’s in permanent party mode. Or perhaps a better word is “kidult,” as in an adult who has lots of childlike energy.
Wayne’s music is about sex, guns, drugs, his money, his music, his greatness and his wild life. It sounds like an ongoing bacchanal. His lyrics say “Every night’s a long night, every day’s a holiday,” but his output says “I am not a human being.”
On “The Fix Before Tha VI,” Wayne has a song where the chorus is him just yelling a word for women’s mammary glands over and over like a kid obsessed with them. If there was ever a grown man who was still a child, it’s Wayne. He’s like Peter Pan — a boy in the midst of a neverending childhood.
When I think about Wayne, the first word that comes to mind is relentless. He seems to assault the beat with his flow like he’s attacking the song. With his sonic aggression, his witty rhymes, his liquid flow and his croak of a voice, no matter how hot the beat is, he’s going to dominate the song. There’s an audacity to Wayne as…
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