David Bowie released his final masterpiece, 2016’s “Blackstar” at the age of sixty-nine shortly before his death. A Tribe Called Quest released “We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service” almost 20 years after their last album. It would prove to be one of the best in their discography. Radiohead’s “A Moon Shaped Pool” is among their best and released well over 20 years into their career. Lastly, Deftones just recently released “private music”, a late career highlight arriving 30 years after their debut.
These are all albums that show their respective artists reaching highpoints later in their discography, maintaining artistic merit well into their careers. Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter VI” is a rebuke to everything these records stand for. It is an abhorrent statement that shows just how far an artist can fall from grace.
Lil Wayne has been in discussion much of the past year. Some felt that he was snubbed for a super bowl halftime show in his hometown, and he has had multiple notable features in the past year (including a great verse on Tyler, the Creator’s “Sticky”). Even outside of this context, he never truly leaves public discussion. Classic tracks like “A Milli” and “6 Foot 7 Foot” are among the best rap songs of all time, and he has been featured on many great rap albums this past decade.
He is among the most influential rappers of all time, gaining a reputation for being able to rap over any beat. He is brought up consistently in arguments over who is the GOAT of hip hop. I find this to be a ludicrous claim, especially looking at the quality of his output over the past 15 years. Tha Carter series has proven to be his one consistent line of work in his large discography, but even now that reputation is stained by one of the worst albums I have ever heard.
Tha Carter VI opens with “King Carter”, an overly dramatic introduction that is not earned with how awful the rest of the album is. Credit where credit is due, “Welcome to Tha Carter” is a fairly solid opening track. The beat is decent albeit nothing new from Wayne, who has some energy in his performance here. The line “you throw Weezy on a beat you’re throwing gas on a fire” could truly sum up the record.
I’m 50/50 on “Bells”, as it has a beat that does hit hard but also feels empty. It channels sounds from the past but lacking the passion of the earlier work it is drawing inspiration from. The energy from the previous track is there, but as the song progresses it begins to crumble some. “Hip-Hop” is the only song on the album that I can say I fully enjoy in the way it was intended to be enjoyed. BigXthaPlug steals the show with a chorus that is full of life and a unique delivery. It is a fun, catchy banger that is by far the best on the album. As for much of the record, Wayne is the worst part of this track, actively working against himself here.
On most albums, this would be at most a middle of the road section of the record, but here this is by FAR the best stretch of songs on the record. I don’t even know where to begin with the rest of the record. For the rest of these 15 songs, they can be grouped into two categories. The first of which is a collection of songs that are remarkably boring, safe, and just damn boring.
“Banned from NO” isn’t particularly awful, but it’s the lack of any ounce of personality that irks me. There are countless other rappers that don’t have the status of Wayne that could have made this track. “Flex Up” features some of the worst vocal delivery on the entire album, with Wayne sounding half-awake for the entirety of the track. The same can more or less be said for “Loki’s Theme”, “Rari”, and “Mula Komin In”. All of these tracks are among the most boring songs that I have ever heard, and personally I would rather listen to a terrible song than a boring one.
The remaining tracks here are among some of the worst songs that I have ever heard. Bizarre beat choices, awful production, lazy samples and horrible writing define these songs. “Maria” features one of the most out of place samples I have ever heard, with an Andrea Bocelli appearance that is out of place and just horribly executed. “Bein Myself” might just be the corniest song of the entire year, sounding like Chance the Rapper from Temu. “Sharks” is profoundly awful. First off, a Jelly Roll feature is possibly the biggest sign that an artist is washed (he makes another ear grating appearance on Eminem’s “The Death of Slim Shady” in the form of a lazy sample). “Snakes ain’t always in the grass, sharks ain’t always in the water” is something you would hear from your redneck uncle who’s been divorced three times yet claims he’s not the problem before turning on Fox News.
Jelly Roll might be the worst artist to get popular in the past two years and unnecessarily makes a bad song awful. “Written History” above all else frustrates me as a closer, for many of the same reasons as the opening moments of the record. It’s overly serious when Wayne hasn’t done one thing the entire record to earn this tone. In the midst of these awful tracks, “Cotton Candy” is a truly strange track that I can’t help but find joy with compared to the tracks surrounding it. It’s such an unorthodox sample, and while the verses are nothing special at all, the instrumental and fun vibe makes it a 5/10 song (which might as well be Pulitzer Prize award worthy compared to this disaster of an album).
These last five tracks feel like a descent into the nine circles of hell. “The Days” is the worst that Bono of U2 has ever sounded. It’s a track that feels like it would come from the early 2000’s in the worst way possible. Wayne is putting in no effort here with his performance or lyricism; for crying out loud he rhymes America with America three times. The track is trying so hard to be “XXX.” from Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN.”, U2 feature, and all yet has none of the maturity and artistic prowess that is found in that track.
As for “Alone in the Studio With My Gun”, every single person on this song is bare minimum ten years too old to be doing all of this. “I’m alone in the studio with my blick – I was shootin’ for the stars, damn I’m hit.” Wayne, you are 42 years old, what are we doing? As for the features, a subpar Kodak Black feature is overshadowed by a uniquely bad Machine Gun Kelly feature. “Told machine gun I’ma need one with a melody” is a sentence no one has ever nor should ever say. MGK and Jelly Roll might be in competition with only each other for worst artist of the 2020’s. EVERY PERSON ON THIS TRACK IS OVER THE AGE OF 28.
I cannot in good faith encourage anyone to listen to “If I Played Guitar.” Lil Wayne needs to be legally banned from picking up an instrument, did we not learn ANYTHING from “Rebirth?” “Island Holiday” isn’t just the worst song on the album (at this point I can say this for half the track listing), it might be the worst song I have ever heard. Featuring an ear grating Weezer interpolation, Lil Wayne delivers an autotuned to death message from hell. The first time I ever heard this war crime of a track was in a restaurant, and it single-handedly killed the conversation as we couldn’t believe what we were hearing.
Lastly, “Peanuts 2 N Elephant” was the first song that I heard from this album, and it is truly a treat. It is so uniquely bad, featuring such a laughably cartoonish 1980 video game instrumental that I can’t help but enjoy it. Aside from the many Donald Trump references, the track is the musical equivalent of watching a horrible movie with your friends for laughs. Music has never sounded like this, and I have to give credit where credit is due because no one EVER would have thought to make this song.
Albums like this make me ask the question of if we can still call an artist great – or even good – when this is the quality of music that is being produced. Lil Wayne is not alone, Kanye has been making music almost as bad as his personal conduct for the past five or so years at least, Eminem hasn’t made a good album in over a decade (and a great one in over 20 years), and Drake has been making lazy album after lazy album for a decade now. All of these artists are brought up in conversations on who is the best to ever do it, and I just can’t in good faith back this up. When you have so many artists who decades into their careers are still making good and refreshing music, I just don’t see an excuse for this. If you say that he has nothing left to prove, I just can’t agree with that as it’s no excuse to make such lazy, God-awful music. If you can’t find it in you to put in the effort to deliver a truly good quality of work, then just put the pen down.
“Tha Carter VI” is a uniquely awful record. At some points it is among the most boring and basic songs that I have ever heard, and at others it is reaching levels of absurdity that are unmatched in rap music today. The few enjoyable moments here are not enough to save this record at all, despite how much I might enjoy laughing at them. For most artists, I think I could let those moments bump the record up a point or two. But when you have the reputation, have built a legacy quite like Lil Wayne, this is just flat out inexcusable. And for that reason, I give this record not only a 1/10 but can confidently say that it is among the worst albums to ever be released.