Are we ready to forgive Lil Wayne? That'd be easier if the hottest rapper of the 2000s stopped apologizing for the delay in his next LPs release, and instead atoned for his recent string of flops (which featured emo guitar forays, flaccid lyricism and a number of cardinal rap sins). Fortunately, Weezy sounds determined to regain all that lost ground on Sorry 4 The Wait 2 (a sequel to the mixtape that preceded his lacklustre 2011 album, Tha Carter IV).
As the title implies, this new mixtape is meant to tide fans over until Weezy's long-gestating fifth Carter LP finally drops. Over Sorry 2's sprawling 17 tracks, Wayne raps with deathbed desperation, as if his lungs are collapsing as he breezily exhales quadruple entendres. Opening track "Coco" features his trademark (and too long absent) thousand-syllable-per-second flow. He follows that with "Shit," on which he spits vulnerably imaginative lines like: "I'm a verbal disease/ I'm allergic to me/ Been a turd on these streets/ Since my curtains was sheets."
The instrumentals are sparse, making every line a stark standout. That can be a blessing, but it curses later numbers like "Preach," (case in point: "My bitches got sex appeal/ They like sex and pills."). Other Tha Carter IV-esque misfires include "Used To," a typical, Drake-assisted hater lament. Closing track "Dreams and Nightmares" is far more effective in that regard; while it too features clichéd lines about money turning friends to foes, it also finds Wayne spitting surprisingly creative couplets about the "suga" that "turned this coke to vanilla." That's part of what makes Sorry 2 so much fun: it's inconsistent, flailing and completely unpredictable. The same could be said for Weezy's career, a fact made all too clear by this all encompassing, last ditch effort mixtape that might just convince fans to accept Wayne's apology.
(Young Money)As the title implies, this new mixtape is meant to tide fans over until Weezy's long-gestating fifth Carter LP finally drops. Over Sorry 2's sprawling 17 tracks, Wayne raps with deathbed desperation, as if his lungs are collapsing as he breezily exhales quadruple entendres. Opening track "Coco" features his trademark (and too long absent) thousand-syllable-per-second flow. He follows that with "Shit," on which he spits vulnerably imaginative lines like: "I'm a verbal disease/ I'm allergic to me/ Been a turd on these streets/ Since my curtains was sheets."
The instrumentals are sparse, making every line a stark standout. That can be a blessing, but it curses later numbers like "Preach," (case in point: "My bitches got sex appeal/ They like sex and pills."). Other Tha Carter IV-esque misfires include "Used To," a typical, Drake-assisted hater lament. Closing track "Dreams and Nightmares" is far more effective in that regard; while it too features clichéd lines about money turning friends to foes, it also finds Wayne spitting surprisingly creative couplets about the "suga" that "turned this coke to vanilla." That's part of what makes Sorry 2 so much fun: it's inconsistent, flailing and completely unpredictable. The same could be said for Weezy's career, a fact made all too clear by this all encompassing, last ditch effort mixtape that might just convince fans to accept Wayne's apology.
