Track of the Day - Lil Wayne “Reciept”

It’s kinda hard saying this shit to your face,

so I do it over snares and bass,

music take me away

This is the song that made me a Wayne fan. I was late to check out The Carter II, but I remember buying a used copy about 6 months after it came out at Newbury Comics on Cape Cod.

This was a bit before the buzz around Wayne hit true pandemonium with the Drought 3 and Carter 3 bootlegs from The Empire, that made the anticipation for his studio album so big. I remember friends and fellow hip-hop fans making fun of me rocking out to an artist that was down with Cash Money. Eventually those friends came full circle as the buzz grew with songs like “Outstanding” and “I feel like dying” showing up in best of lists for 2007.

Weezy has a big tour and a new rock record set for 2009, but its the Carter II and ‘07 Lil Wayne that showed this young talent in his prime. Lets hope it wasn’t a peak.

Today’s rant: Music Videos
Young Money - Every Girl in the World vs. Eminem - We Made You

This video above for Every Girl in the World is a very corny/cheaply made vid, but fits into the web-only music video realm we’ve created today. I’m posting not only for the video itself, but also for the verse from J. Millz. Somehow, Wayne has talked him into using autotune and not only does it work for this track, this is such an awkward use of what is basically a radio friendly sound with over the top misogynistic raps. A true juxtaposition of friendly hooks with street/mixtape verses.

It’s amazing that artists are now making videos for web buzz–dirty versioned, with over the top lyrics–instead of versions with the goal of MTV spins. I was a bit surprised when I heard in an MTV news clip that the Young Money crew would be shooting a video for this, but give up to Wayne for knowing where his fans are. More people will watch this today online than it could ever possibly air on a cable channel, even in a fully edited version.

On the other hand we have the new Eminem video below for We Made You. In his post of the video Eskay of nahright mentions that the video has played twice in 20 minutes on MTV, something truly amazing for a video released in the last 3 or 4 years. I’ve always been a fan of music videos. I post quite a few of them on whizhouse, and I watch even more, though not nearly as many as I did when they were, say, on television. I was excited to hear MTV was going to be bringing back morning music videos during the work week and its great to see a vid from one of my favorite artists getting so much exposure but its funny to think about these two different videos, targeting different audiences and the artists behind them.  Both Lil Wayne and Eminem have had tremendous success but Wayne’s success has come during the Internet age, while Eminem’s was one of 10 million records sold and colossal exposure for his humorous videos. When the Slim Shady LP dropped you couldn’t go an our without seeing My name is on TV, and the video truly made his career, selling millions of copies before most fans had heard anything else from him. I can’t remember the last time I bought an album off the strength of one song–it just doesn’t happen anymore. I’m sure this is all information that Interscope is well aware of when releasing Em’s new project, but my guess is a video like this was not as cheap to make as the Young Money video. In the end Eminem will gain more exposure for his video and see a much larger number of viewers on TV but as the belts tighten and the growth of youtube clips and flipcam vids out number the big artists polished videos, which direction will find more success in the long term? And, do the costs of high production always mean high exposure? Some of the biggest/best releases of the last year have been web only–maybe another rant for another day.

Lil Wayne interview with Katie Couric (full)

This is why I love the internet. Doing a quick check of my twitter account before bed, and Nahright comes through with the full clip to talk hype up this years Grammys.

Awesome.

Good night internets, good night Ms. Katie.

LATE NIGHT UPDATE: Download this collection of Wanye tracks I call “Codeine is a hell of a Drug Vol. 1” its a collection of material that has leaked recently, all post Carter III.

NEXT MORNING UPDATE: found another version of the video.

Track of the Day - Q-tip “Renaissance Rap (remix)”
ft. Busta Rhymes, Raekwon & Lil Wayne

“I don’t care who first and who last, I just know y’all better rock this at the drop of a dime baby…”

After all the BS with Lil Wanye’s rock record Rebirth I know you want to hear him rap. This is just a great grouping of MC’s provided via DJ Green Lantern on twitter. Rae kills it, and between this and the track with Ghost that leaked yesterday, its hopeful to hear new work from the Wu.

Enjoy the track. I’ll be trying to run around to a few events tonight so I might not get to any other updates, but I should have a new mixtape and some design related news for this weekend.

Download Renaissance Rap remix

See previous TOD:

De La Soul ft MF Doom ‘Rock Ko.Cane Flow’

Lil Wayne 51st Grammy Poster

To promote this years Grammy’s top nominees were asked to name their top 15 songs from their lifetime. These song titles were then used to produce portraits of the artists face. Other posters made include Stevie Wonder and Rihanna.

The poster design is similar to video designed for Jay-z’s Brooklyn (Go Hard). Even if the concept is far from new, its nice to see design being integrated into advertising. As we begin to phase out more and more of the millions of images presented to us daily, its going to take more than a glossy photo to get a viewers attention.

via creativity-online.com

Lil Wayne Documentary: The Carter Trailer

Scheduled to premier at Sundace, there must be some unreal footage in this thing. QD3 has been following Wayne around for a while now and with is say anything, drunk on purple stuff rampage he has been on this could be a very interesting project.

Lil Wayne The Drought is Over Pt. 6

one of three great new mixtapes to get you through the long holiday weekend. (peep next two posts)

Download here.

1. The Reincarnation
2. I’m A Monster
3. Red Magic Ft The Game
4. Nina
5. Best Thing Yet
6. First Place Winner Ft Swizz Beatz, Curren$y & Mack Maine
7. Gorilla
8. Louisianimal Ft Lil Boosie
9. Down Here Ft Rick Ross
10. My Office
11. I Feel Me (Produced By Mental Instruments)
12. Put Me In The Game
13. Different Girl Ft Nu Jerzey Devil
14. Blinded
15. Forever Ft Chris Brown
16. See It For Myself
17. Tell Everybody That You Know Ft Kanye West
18. Whatever You Like Ft Jae Millz & Young Gutta
19. Shootout
20. Dick Pleaser Ft Jae Millz
21. Street Life
22. Drought Is Never Over

Track of the Day - Lil Wayne “Best Thing”

The Leak V was kinda meh, Dedication 3 was ok… but I’m actually looking forward to the Empire’s new mixtape with Wayne, The Drought 6. Despite his awful drops, he has put out the best Wayne tapes, and leaked in The Carter 3 Sessions what should have probably been the final album.

This track isn’t amazing, but its great to hear Wayne rapping again and not using autotune and being lost in a haze of Drank. Download here.

See previous TOD:

GLC “Big Screen” (ft. Kanye West)

Lil Wayne & DJ Drama - Dedication 3 download

you can listen to the imeem stream below, or download the mixtape here.

only gave it a quick listen so far. a couple decent tracks, lot of Jae Millz on here which is solid. I think I need to spin it one or two more times before putting a stamp of approval on it. One note…way too many skits.

Otherwise, enjoy!