Lil Wayne & Pharrell: "Yes"

Post-Carter III success Weezy has seemed something like a sizzurp’d thirteen year old, eyes rolled back in ecstasy, splashing about, enthusiastically, but uninspiringly, in a pool of his own almost-man-filth. It’s hard to muster much indignance over it. Take one look at the “Mrs. Officer” video, in which Wayne sits atop the hood of a car with an acoustic guitar, not merely playing it wrong, but just flat fucking weirdly, groping at it like it’s a chastity belt about to pop open, and it’s apparent how unabashedly elated he is. In wake of his ridiculous workload over the past three years, I have no qualms letting him fully enjoy the pinnacle’s view; if that means putting his crew on, hacking up a few sonically repulsive crooner tracks, and debating Tim Tebow with ESPN’s Skip Bayless, more power to him.

So, with Wayne’s ambition seemingly in a down cycle, he smacks that other rapper’s disc out of our feeble grasp: “Weezy, why you drive so fast / Because I’m chasin’ a dream / And when I find that motherfucker I’ma rape it and leave.” Well, alright then. Locating a sweet spot between Auto-tuned-to-shit sing-songing and “A Milli” diarrheal bars, Wayne butterflies through two verses of mesmerizing minutia, elucidating, among other things: his crew’s exact level of scariness, the amount of time he’s been of exorbitant wealth, and his affection for that “panty pie.” Oh, and in case you forgot, the “F.” is for phenomenal.

Pharrell proves in between churning out C+ material for Common’s explanation of why we should’ve stopped caring about him three years ago, he and Chad were smoking a lot of weed and listening to dubstep, the formula for this filthy, oscillating black mamba of a beat. Meanwhile, P tough-guys his way through his (possibly Wayne-ghostwritten[?]) half of the track, which is an oddly refreshing alternative to his usual sedated flow.

These ingredients amalgamate into an affirmation that, no, Wayne’s drive will not be doused, the Neps sonic palette is ever-expanding, and Chuck D, somewhere, is feeling dirty.