Tha Rankings: Tha Carter 2

Tha Carter 2

Disclaimer: This is probably my favorite Lil Wayne album and one of my favorite projects of all time. This album is more than just the sequel, it is truly a version 2.0 of the first Carter. It is an upgrade in flows, individuality, and overall standout moments. The Fly In, Fly Out is the next level up from Walking In and Out. The beat is more pressing than the laid back series from Tha Carter 1 and Wayne raps each almost like a radio freestyle whereas the first he stays true to the idea of describing the walk through Tha Carter. The problems with long songs is fixed quite a bit here (as much as a 22 track album released in 2005 can be). There are 4 full songs that are under 4 minutes compared to only 1 off Tha Carter 1. The longest songs fight hard to earn their time and don’t seem to drag nearly as much as some from Tha Carter 1. In fact, the two songs over 5 minutes may be my favorite 2 songs on the entire project (Tha Mobb and Hustler Musik). Tha Mobb has no chorus at all and Hustler Musik has one of the best Wayne hooks of all time. Songs like Shooter are much more dynamic than the chorus/verse alternation that happen in almost every single song off Tha Carter 1 which make them much more interesting. Curren$y’s verse on Grown Man is better than any of the feature verses from the first Carter and even Birdman contributes positively on Im a Dboy. Although I love Mannie Fresh and wish he had some sort of appearance on this album, the variety is nice and I have no complaints about the quality of the production on this album. The multiple sample based beats are welcomed and add an element that was completely missing off the first Carter. The skits are just as short as the first Carter although on the block #2 and 3 aren’t too memorable, the first skit where Wayne talks about being the best rapper alive and not wanting to battle for free is reminiscent of some of his best skits from his mixtapes and is still short and skippable if desired. I do enjoy every song on here as it is one of my favorite albums, but there is definitely a couple places for improvement. A verse from Kurupt on Lock and Load would’ve been incredible and to be honest, the feature hook doesn’t really blow me away (although I do think it fits the song well enough). Hit Em Up and Weezy Baby could probably be removed for a tighter tracklist and not much would be lost despite the fact I do genuinely enjoy both songs. My view of “classic level” songs off this project is probably skewed due to so many full listens of this project, but I would say Tha Mobb, Money On My Mind, Fireman, Hustler Musik and Shooter rank near the top of Waynes best songs ever (and maybe if you combined Fly In, Carter 2 and Fly Out into one song… and Receipt and… okay I’ll stop).

Overall: I love this album and think it addressed almost every one of my concerns with the first Carter and improved on it virtually every way. There is still a few changes that could’ve made the album perfect in my eyes, but this was a pretty good attempt.

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