At this point, it’s nothing short of ridiculous to argue against Lil Wayne’s importance. Music today has his fingerprints all over it and his absence has been nothing short of criminal. Weezy’s singularity, his energy, his unexpectedness and creativity, and the fact that he has prodigious enough skill to pull off his more absurd tricks with all of the above are things that rap has sorely missed.
Funeral has Wayne return to something more of a mixtape sensibility and the return to mixtape Weezy is welcome, even if it’s not 2006 anymore. He’s loose and having fun here and there’s some quite good music that comes from it. Right at the beginning of the album he goes hard in “Mahogany.” He has a velocity with his raps that always feels breathless, but he’s in such control throughout.
When he goes hard here, he does really well. “Ball Hard” really stands out for what he can just do as a rapper. He just drops a stream of consciousness on the listener, but he’s so good a rapper that it grabs you the whole way. Throughout, when he just lets go and raps, the album shines. “Bing James” and “Not Me” showcase him as just a rapper and are highlights.
His experiments are more of a mixed bag though. “Dreams” is interesting and it’s a very Lil Wayne song. This is the kind of thing that we’ve been missing without him. However, while “Sights and Silencers” might be interesting for its inclusion as a slow R&B jam, it’s just not good enough to warrant that inclusion. “I Don’t Sleep” has a solid flow, but the venture into pop-trap with Offset ends up forgettable overall. “Trust Nobody” with Adam Levine is just unfortunate.
There is undoubtedly some air in this album, but it still has a lot of solid music. It doesn’t really have anything that’s a must-listen and that’s what really holds it back from being a full return to Weezy’s peak, but it’s still fun and a good reminder of who exactly Lil Wayne can be.
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