It's not so much the fact I feel limpbizkit passed their prime, that makes me roll my eyes at this song...it's the fact that Lil' Wayne will be appearing on the track. I can't think of ONE Lil' Wayne track I've heard yet that sounds good, or actually half intelligent. Every song I've heard from him sounds like he's drunk/high and forgot half the lyrics. I'll cautiously give this song a chance, but I feel LW is going to ruin anything good about it.
[youtube]uILgb3NJMIQ[/youtube] [youtube]gZxFe8WUzVU[/youtube] [youtube]2DBztcpY758[/youtube] You should listen to more of his stuff. And nothing wrong with SOUNDING like he's drunk or high. He's got some pretty insane verse delivery no matter how you look at it. You should be worried about is Lil Wayne still thinks he can do rock albums. And that limpbizkit is still making music. Lil Wayne has definitely made more good music than limpbizkit has.
Would I be alone if I said I wasn't overly impressed with any of those three tracks? Sure he has a quick flow, but a quick flow means nothing if your lyrical content is sub-par, which I've always felt LW to be. I respect he has a large fanbase, and I respect that some people enjoy his music, but it's just not for me. I compare the hip-hop of the 90s, to the rap of today and there's no comparison. Surely someone with as diverse a musical taste as you can agree with that.
That's where you're making your mistakes. You're comparing HIP-HOP of the 90s to RAP. If you compared the RAP of the 90s to that of today, you'd have much better results. And trust me, there's a huge difference between the two. Sure, rap is a FORM of hip-hop, but not all hip-hop can be considered rap (I'm of course using the term 'rap' as a shortened form of the popular term 'gangsta rap'). The biggest issue here is that you're probably really familiar with West Coast or East Coast hip-hop, whereas Lil Wayne, Cash Money Records in general, and others of that style are based in what is considered Dirty South. I'm looking at rappers like Mike Jones, Paul Wall, Chamillionaire, Luda, T.I., and UGK here. Then of course, we're talking about rap in general, which isn't IN MOST CASES known for lyrical content. How many people have complained about rap being only 'cash, weed, bling, cars, and hos'?
yeah, it sounds silly, but there really is a difference between rap and hip-hop. I mean, if you have someone like Common and 50 Cent side by side, it's pretty easy to tell which one is rap and which one is hip-hop. That said, though, I love "rap" more than I do "hip-hop" these days, and Lil' Wayne is one of my favorite artists. His studio discography is subpar, but his mixtapes are out of control. They're really fucking good. Da Drought 3 might be my favorite mixtape ever. Limp Bizkit, however, are not anywhere close to being a favorite of mine, and will more than likely ruin the song for me more than Lil' Wayne. If anything, Lil' Wayne will improve what would otherwise be just another shitty LB song. (PS: I dare Derek to watch a few Lil' B videos without his brain exploding.)
Flow >>>>>> Lyrical content. The beat and how the rapper sounds over it are far more important than what they're rapping about to me. Unless it's some nazi shit. Lil Wayne has some pretty clever lines anyway. Nothing deep, but as far as brags and jokes go he does okay. Distinction between Hip Hop and Rap is a bit weird to me, couldn't almost all of the classic 90s albums be classified as 'Gangster Rap'? But in any case, I don't really like seeing Southern Hip Hop being put in a bad light. UGK, Scarface, Clipse, Outkast and Cunninlynguists put out pretty great stuff that I'd easily rate up with Illmatic, 36 Chambers, Ready To Die etcccccc.
Okay, then if we're going under "Rap" to refer to 90's "Gangsta Rap" that leaves us with some of the following artists (of many): KRS-One Ice T N.W.A. (and Ice Cube as he was formerly a member of N.W.A) Dr. Dre Snoop Dogg Cypress Hill Tupac Biggie Beastie Boys (seems out of place but they identified themselves as gangsta rap) 50 Cent (pre-mainstream) Raekwon Wu Tang Clan All of the above were/are incredible at their genre, and run circles around today's "rap". Today's "rap" can't even light a candle to some of the classic albums from those artists.
I would argue that Lil' Wayne is definitely still better than pre-Get Rich or Die Tryin' era 50 Cent, Cypress Hill and Ice-T. I'd say KRS-One too, but that's me being a vindictive little asshole because I hate his stuff. I've never thought Biggie was anything that special, to be honest. That's just me, though. Lil' Wayne's mixtapes are mostly stream-of-consciousness freestyles, and they're awesome. Just comes down to opinion and preference, really. You got me on NWA/Ice Cube/Eazy E, Snoop, 2Pac, the Beasties and Wu-Tang/Raekwon/GZA/Ghostface. I don't like Dr. Dre that much, he's a good producer (I guess) but I don't like him as an active artist. If Lil' B is the future of hip-hop/rap/whatever like a lot of people say, I'm okay with that. A shitload of people don't get his music, though. That's what one of the main things I love about his music, actually. The reaction it provokes from outsiders. It's hilarious.
If you're gonna put pre-mainstream 50 Cent up there, then am I allowed to counter with underground releases from the last year? Because Danny Brown, Shabazz Palaces and Death Grips all put out albums last year that I'd much rather listen to than Cypress Hill or 2pac.
I'll concede that Lil Wayne isn't terrible, but I'll also raise the point that, his mixtapes notwithstanding, he's gotten worse since Tha Carter III. (Of course, that's simply my opinion.) I haven't been able to stand anything he's done since that album, which I thought was one of the greatest rap albums of the past decade. But as far as his studio albums go, they've gotten worse. Also, I'm glad other people are intelligent enough to know that there's a huge difference between "rap" and "hip hop." I argue that with my roommate all the time and he doesn't believe me and claims it all sounds the same to him, even when I play blatantly different songs (I played Common and then T.I. and he said they sounded the same; he's an idiot). So I'm glad other people "get" it.
I know there's a distinction between rap and hip-hop but honestly majority of the people use the terms interchangeably. I'll go as far as to say that even a lot of rappers themselves don't care much about the major distinction between the two. My real introduction to Lil Wayne has been through songs like "Lollipop" and that really left a bad taste in my mouth. And since then he's been putting out shitty songs after shitty songs. So whenever people say "listen to his older stuff" I automatically shut myself off it. I simply can't see him under a good light. At all. And if we're talking clever one-liners and punchlines... there are rappers/groups (eg. Copywrite, Rhyme Asylum, Diabolic etc.) who are infinitely better at doing all that than Lil Wayne.
So apparently DJ Lethal played the new song at a dj set. A lot better then expected. Warning: The audio quality is pretty bad, but it does give you an idea of what the song is going to sound like. [video=youtube;eh1Q14N6G-g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh1Q14N6G-g[/video]
Lil Wayne actually seems to have put down a pretty awesome verse there :" and I don't normally like his rapping
I'm going to jump on the "better than expected" bandwagon. The track actually doesn't suck. Limpbizkit...you may actually pull this comeback off. Color me impressed.
Could hardly make out any of that, but I'm listening to Dirt Off Your Shoulder now so that's always good.