Tha Carter is the fourth studio album by American rapper Lil Wayne. It was released on June 29, 2004, by Cash Money Records and Universal Records.[6] The production on the album was mostly handled by Cash Money's former in-house producer Mannie Fresh, before Mannie left the label. A chopped and screwed version of the album was also released by Cash Money Records in 2004. The album spawned four sequels: Tha Carter II, Tha Carter III, Tha Carter IV, and Tha Carter V.
The album debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 116,000 copies in its first week.[7] The album was later certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in September 2020.[8]
The album's lead single, "Bring It Back" was released on April 10, 2004, while its second single, "Go D.J." was released on October 5, 2004. Both songs were produced by and featured guest vocals from then-Cash Money's frequent record producer Mannie Fresh.
Tha Carter debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 116,000 copies in its first week.[9] This became Wayne's third US top-ten debut.[7] As of November 2005, the album has sold 878,000 copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[10] On September 25, 2020, the album was certified 2 platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of two million units in the United States.[8]
American rapper Lil Wayne has released thirteen studio albums, one collaborative album, three compilation albums, five extended plays, and twenty-nine mixtapes. Wayne made his album debut in 1999, with Tha Block Is Hot, which was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. His later albums, Lights Out released in 2000, and 500 Degreez, released in 2002, attracted minor attention. In 2004, he released the first of his infamous Carter series, with Tha Carter. In 2005, Tha Carter II was released. In 2006, Wayne released a collaborative album with rapper Birdman, titled Like Father, Like Son. In 2008, Wayne released his best-selling album so far, titled Tha Carter III. Certified triple platinum by the RIAA,[1] Tha Carter III won the Best Rap Album award at the 2009 Grammy Awards.[2] Lil Wayne founded record label Young Money Entertainment and released a collaborative album featuring rappers signed to the label, We Are Young Money, in 2009, followed by his debut rock music album Rebirth in 2010. While serving an 8-month prison sentence in New York he released another album entitled I Am Not a Human Being, in September 2010. The next addition to Tha Carter series, Tha Carter IV, was released on August 29, 2011. In 2013, Wayne released a sequel to his 2010 album I Am Not a Human Being, titled I Am Not a Human Being II, followed by two compilation albums with his labels, Rich Gang (2013), and Young Money: Rise of an Empire (2014). After years of legal battles, his 12th studio album Tha Carter V was released on September 28, 2018. Lil Wayne released another album, Funeral, on January 31, 2020.
As of 2018, all of Wayne's albums have been certified gold or higher by the RIAA. His album sales in the United States stand at over 15 million copies as of July 2013,[3] and his digital track sales stand at over 37 million digital copies.[4]
Over his more than 20-year career, Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., has become what he prophesied on Tha Carter II that he's the "Best Rapper Alive." Not only that, but Weezy has also solidified his reputation as a rapper with longevity, personality and a larger-than-life attitude.
Wayne has spent half of his career as an artist on the venerable rap label Cash Money Records. But after releasing 10 albums with the label, he parted ways after a long, drawn out legal battle with the CEO and mentor Bryan "Birdman" Williams. Out of his past projects, Weezy's most revered music series is Tha Carter albums.
In varying album releases from 2004 to 2018, Tha Carter series helped establish Wayne as a major pop star with street credibility. The first Carter album gave a lyrical look at Wayne's maturity from a child rapper to a rap contender. On Tha Carter II, Wayne puffed out his chest and asserted that he was the best rapper alive.
On Tha Carter III, his most commercially successful album out of the series, Wayne made good on his proclamation. His popularity soared with this project, notching him his first two top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with "Lollipop" and "A Milli." With Tha Carter IV and Tha Carter V albums, the rap veteran manages to stay relevant to fans despite those projects having musical and lyrical shortcomings.
After releasing five Carter albums altogether, Wayne is far from done with the series. In a July 3 interview with Variety, the rap veteran hinted that he is working on the next installment of Tha Carter series, Tha Carter VI. When the interviewer asked Weezy what's his favorite Carter project, he replied, "My favorite Carter album is the next one."
So with the possibility that another Carter album is in the works, XXL decided to rank Lil Wayne's Tha Carter album series below from worst to best. Which one is your favorite Carter album?
Shkreli was known in the business world, but he became infamous in 2015, when he took over as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and raised the prices of an AIDS-fighting drug called Daraprim from $13.50 to $750. He infuriated rap fans when he submitted the winning bid for Wu-Tang Clan's single-copy album Once Upon A Time In Shaolin. He also attempted to buy Kanye West's The Life Of Pablo, announced plans to bail Bobby Shmurda out of jail, and dissed Ghostface Killah on video.
Earmarked as a gifted elementary school student in New Orleans, he became the token prodigy of his hometown's Cash Money clique at the age of 16, spitting pipsqueak gangsterisms over skittering Mannie Fresh beats. And, opposed to the typical rap flame-out trajectory, Wayne got better-- and stranger-- with each album. Now, nine years after his first solo LP, and on the heels of an unprecedented glut of increasingly remarkable mixtape and internet leaks, we get Tha Carter III, the epic culmination of a lifetime of eccentricities. This is Wayne's moment and he embraces it on his own terms. Instead of hiding his bootleg-bred quirks in anticipation of the big-budget spotlight, he distills the myriad metaphors, convulsing flows, and vein-splitting emotions into a commercially gratifying package that's as weird as it wants to be; he eventually finds his guitar but keeps the strumming in check.
One of the few satisfying tracks on OutKast's bungled Idlewild album was a woozy bitchfest called "Hollywood Divorce" featuring Lil Wayne. In hindsight, the invite feels like an act of sanctification. The song's a lesson in winning idiosyncrasies-- Andre, Big Boi, and Wayne are all salty, but they make sure to side-step pessimism (Big Boi deems rumor mongers "M&M's with no nuts"). Traces of the South's most genre-bursting, P-Funk-worshipping ATLiens can be heard all over C3, from Wayne's staccato phrasing on "Mr. Carter" to the extraterrestrial fetishism of "Phone Home" to the eclectic unpredictability of it all. The musical open-mindedness also lifts C3 above regional niches-- the #1 hit "Lollipop" sounds more like it was born on Jupiter than anywhere on earth. While Wayne isn't quite ready to produce something like "Hey Ya!", don't be shocked if you see him held up by a pair of leprechaun suspenders in the not-so-distant future.
C3 is Wayne's most absurd album to date but it's also his most personal. "Shoot Me Down", with its "Lose Yourself"-style guitar chug and ominous hook, has the rapper looking all the way back to age 12, when he accidentally shot himself with a .44 Magnum while toying with the gun in a mirror. "Two more inches I'd have been in that casket/ According to the doctor I could've died in traffic," he rhymes on "3 Peat", possibly referring to the day in 2001 when a disgruntled groupie shot at his tour bus, planting a bullet in his chest. Such details add even more gravitas to his grizzled, elastic timbre, which suggests an impossibly hoarse (and high) David Ruffin at times. "All I ask is don't take our love for granted," sings a perfectly sympathetic Babyface alongside Wayne on the lush ballad "Comfortable", the line coming off more like a saucer-eyed plea than a threat. And the LP's best track doubles as its most crazed and pained.
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