Lil Wayne Continues His Success With “Tha Carter” Series

09 Sep, 2011 craig Articles, Front Page, Uncategorized

Lil Wayne "Tha Carter IV" Cash Money/Universal Republic Records Group

New Orleans rapper Lil’ Wayne is considered by many to be one of the best rappers alive,.Well if record sales have anything to do with it, they just may be right. If going to prison couldn’t stop Wayne’s 2010 album I Am Not A Human Being from topping the charts, certainly a leak of the album on Twitter wouldn’t stop him. In fact Lil’ Wayne has set a new ITunes sales record for selling over three hundred thousamd album downloads in its first four days of release for his latest album, Tha Carter IV. What makes this achievement that much more significant was because it was released ten days early to help stop a leak on Twitter. Yes that’s right even though Wayne and his label Cash Money/Universal Republic went through extensive efforts to prevent the album from leaking, on August 24th it leaked online and quickly became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

The album features the hit singles “6 Foot, 7 Foot” featuring Wayne’s new protégé Cory Gunz and the primarily acoustic song about reflection called “How To Love” As many already know the album’s title comes as a sequel to Wayne’s 2008 blockbuster album, Tha Carter III, which featured a number of Wayne’s biggest hits including “Lollipop”, “Got Money” featuring T-Pain, “A Millie”, and many others. It also included Wayne’s most socially conscious track, “Tie My Hands” featuring Robin Thicke, which is about the victims of Hurricane Katrina in his hometown of New Orleans.

Tha Carter IV continues the theme found on the previous “Carter” albums of a mix of mainstrem production and collaborations, completed with Wayne’s animated personality of raw punch lines and story telling. Even though Wayne has been signed to Cash Money Records since he was 11 years old, and first released his debut album, Tha Block Is Hot in 1999 at age 16, “Tha Carter” series began with his 4th album in 2004.

The album’s title was named after Lil Wayne’s real name, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. It was considered to be his breakout album as it was the first to showcase his maturity as a lyricist and over all performer. The beginning of “Tha Carter” series also marks when he bgan to take more of a leadership role at Cash Money Records, allowing him to take creative risks with collaborations with artists outside of the Cash Money roster. These efforts Wayne trail blazed with the first Carter album in 2004 would be the building blocks of work ethic and over all experience that would help him to grow into the Pop star he became in 2008 with Tha Carter III. .

Like Wayne’s new “Carter” album, the original version of 2008’s Tha Carter III was also widely leaked, forcing Wayne to release many of the songs on the album on an EP called, The Leak, released in December of 2007! If anything though, like the quick success of Tha Carter IV now that album went on to sell 1.8 million copies in its first week in a music industry that seems to continue to shrink at an alarming rate. There is something that Lil’ Wayne knows that most of the old school record business has yet to figure out. Tha Carter III went on to sell close to 4 million albums in the US alone. Will Wayne be able to match that success with Tha Carter IV? Well only time will be able to determine the answer to that question. But Wayne has continued to put in the work to make his chances at success pretty good.

Throughout his accomplished career, one thing Wayne has become known for is collaborating with various different types of artists of many different genres. At only 28 years old Wayne has already been able to appear on 366 colllaborations of all different types. This made his new “Carter” project, a must have for different performers resume. The album includes appearances by the likes of Rick Ross, Drake, John Legend and others. Drake is on the album’s 3rd and current single,, “She Will”, produced by T-Minus, who is known for producing the hits “How Low” by Ludacris and “Moment 4 Life” by Nicki Minaj featuring Drake. However, possibly one of the most interesting collaborations for the album, is one not actually on the album. As the album’s single, “How To Love” gains more and more momentum accompanied with a very emotionally gripping music video, Lil’ Wayne and his label did something some may find surprising, he teamed up with his Universal Republic label mate, Latin Pop singer, Enrique Igesias for its official remix. Now with that said, this was in now way the first time the two of them worked together. Wayne first worked with Enrique on the song “Push It” on the soundtrack for, Step Up 2: The Streets, and he recently appeared on the single version of Enrique’s latest hit, “Dirty Dancer”, originally only featuring Usher, until Wayne appeared on the version used for the music video. But this time what makes this collaboration different with Enrique is that “How To Love”‘s remix is the first of Wayne’s songs to have a “Spanglish” version. On this version of the song Wayne and Igesias take turns singing different lyrics from the song, Wayne sings English, while Enrique sings Spanish. When looking back on his career and seeing what Lil’ Wayne has done to evolve to keep staying fresh in this industry a couple of things come to mind, He knows what his listeners like, and he always gives them plenty of it, but at the same time you never know what he’s going to do next!

Music From Tha Carter IV

Lil Wayne

“How To Love”

From Tha Carter IV

Cash Money/Universal Republic Records Group

Lil’ Wayne Featuring Enrique Igelsias

“How To Love” (Spanglish Version)

Cash Money/Universal Republic Records Group

Lil Wayne Featuring Drake

“She Will” (Explicit)

From Tha Carter IV

Cash Money/Universal Republic Records Group

Lil Wayne Featuring Cory Gunz

“6 Foot, 7 Foot” (Explicit)

From Tha Carter IV

Cash Money/Universal Republic Records Group

Music From Tha Carter III

Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major

“Lollipop”

From Tha Carter III

Cash Money/Universal Motown Records Group

Lil’ Wayne Featuring T-Pain

“Got Money”

From Tha Carter III

Cash Money/Universal Motown Records Group

Lil Wayne Featuring Robin Thicke

“Tie My Hands”

From Tha Carter III

Cash Money/Universal Motown Records Group

Music From Tha Carter II

Lil Wayne

“Fireman”

From Tha Carter II