All 14 Lil Wayne Albums, Ranked (Staff Picks)
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Over the years, Weezy has evolved into a genre-defining figure, and his catalog as a result is a wild ride filled with exorbitant highs (Tha Carter III) and crushing lows (Rebirth). Not every Wayne album is perfect — and from our first handful of listens, Tha Carter VI might unfortunately be one of his more imperfect releases — but the New Orleans spitter has made a career out of taking creative risks regardless of the outcome, and that needs to be applauded. Even when these risks haven't paid off, it's undeniable that Wayne has forever changed the course of mainstream rap because of them.
Whether you're a longtime fan or not, the breakdown below of Wayne's albums aim to celebrate the highs, acknowledge the missteps and explore how Weezy's music reflects a career forever defined by resilience, reinvention and a relentless amount of unparalleled lyricism. Let's dive in and see how the legacy stacks up, one album at a time.
While Lil Wayne should be praised for his experimentation, Rebirth's risky venture down a rock-and-roll-trodden path didn't garner the best results. 'Drop The World' was the only major success, as Weezy's Auto-Tuned drizzlings and occasional guitar riffs couldn't save the record from flop status. Regardless, it reaffirmed his status as a creative risktaker, and you can't fully hate on Wayne's earnest-if-dated attempt to try and shake up the music industry snow globe. (Weezy did rap 'Confidence is the stain they can't wipe off' on 'Drop.') His commitment was and remains endearing. — MACKENZIE CUMMINGS-GRADY
Unlike Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise — which only seems to get better over time — the same can't be said for Lil Wayne's beloved Carter series. On Friday (June 6), Wayne unloaded his sixth entry and whiffed entirely. The lackluster showing isn't solely his fault — he flashes glimpses of vintage, Martian-level creativity on the BigXthaPlug-assisted 'Hip-Hop' and the ovation-worthy outro 'Written History.' But what derails the entire experience is his porous beat selection: 'Peanuts 2 N Elephant,' produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is a full-blown trainwreck, while 'If I Played Guitar' is a putrid rehash of 'How to Love.' Unless Wayne brings in better producers, he may need to retire the Carter name before it further muddies the legacy of this legendary series. — CARL LAMARRE
While far from Wayne's strongest album, FWA makes sense under the context with which it was created. Made in 2015, during a time when Birdman appeared to holding Carter V hostage, FWA was created as an exclusive under the Tidal streaming service, with which Weezy was a fellow 'artist owner.' This means that FWA was created either with demos or under duress, either way leading to an uneven project filled with solid bars over solid beats. Memorability never felt like the goal of FWA, with songs like 'London Roads' and 'Murda' merely proving ghostly echoes of Carter IV's past. Instead, the set served as more of a necessary reminder that Weezy was still here, and largely succeeded at satiating his restless fans for a bit longer before the Carter V could finally see the light of day later in the decade. — M.C.G.
2002's 5000 Degreez showcased a young 19-year-old Lil Wayne finding his voice. The tape was full of ripe potential, with songs like 'Where You At' and 'Way of Life' offering glimpses of the hip-hop powerhouse Tunechi would soon become. But 5000 Degreez felt shrouded in a fog of monotony: The tape was obviously meant as an ode to Juvenile's 4000 Degreez, but what emerged in Weezy's version was a lot of similarly constructed club records that bled into one another. Pockets of greatness did emerge through that fog, but clearly the best was yet to come. — M.C.G.
I Am Not a Human Being 2 was almost destined to be a slump, considering even Weezy himself derided the project as a 'bum-ass album' before its 2013 release. The standout singles ('Love Me', 'Rich as F—k,' 'No Worries,') were the only particularly memorable tracks, making some solid impact in clubs and on radio. Even then, these were far from Weezy's greatest lyrical accomplishments, and at times felt almost satirical ('P—y in my face, I ain't got no worries'). Every other song came and went as quickly as a gentle breeze, and a major days-long health scare for Wayne lessened the work's commercial impact even further. — M.C.G.
The original I Am Not a Human Being came at a strange time in Weezy's career. Released right before his own release from jail on a gun possession charge, the album felt immeasurable in terms of what it meant for Wayne's career at this moment. And the Drake-assisted four-peat of 'Gonorrhea,' 'With You,' 'I'm Single' and 'Right Above It' all stuck the landing, capturing the waning Young Money chemistry at one of its last high points.
But the album's other tracks — even some of the ventures with Nicki Minaj — felt undercooked, considering how high the stakes were for Wayne's career. Would Weezy emerge from jail able to return to his era of dominance? Would he fall back and recalibrate? I Am Not a Human Being, which included songs mostly recorded before his eight month Rikers Island stint, did not offer any clear answers. — M.C.G.
Emerging after the pressure surrounding Carter V's release had finally lifted, 2020's Funeral served as a playful return to form for Weezy. Tapping back into a breakneck level of efficiency seen during his prolific post-Carter II mixtape run, Wayne raps about nothing in particular with a devilish glint in his eye. Songs like 'Bastard (Satan's Kid)' and 'Line Em Up' cover the usual array of braggadocious Wayne topics — being the best, smoking that loud, eliminating the opps — but it's clear he feels a sense of relief while he raps. Wayne can't seem to get the bars out fast enough. Yes, Funeral is bloated, and its slower songs drag the tape down to a slog, but hearing Wayne have fun again after the emotional and legal turmoil surrounding the Carter V made the highs of Funeral feel very high. — M.C.G.
Tha Block Is Hot will always have a nostalgic place in the heart of any longtime Weezy fan. Songs like 'Tha Block Is Hot' and 'Loud Pipes' will always get a party going, and 'F—k tha World' will always cause some diehard Wayne fan to step out of the woodwork and rap it word-for-word. Wayne's 1999 debut was quickly overshadowed by much of what came after, but Tha Block Is Hot is filled with the bristling potential of a future rap superstar. — M.C.G.
Arguably his most underrated album, 2000's Lights Out showed glimpses of Wayne's superstar potential and songwriting prowess. It's also the first album where he starts to hint at Jay-Z's influence — specifically on the track 'Lil One,' where he and Baby perform their own version of Jigga and Memphis Bleek's 'Coming of Age' series. Then, there's the standout Hot Boys posse cut 'Shine,' which proved once again that Weezy and Cash Money weren't just a Southern Rap phenomenon: It was a favorite in the New York City area back then, getting major play in this writer's car specifically. — ANGEL DIAZ
From the legal drama, to the personal turmoil between Birdman and Weezy, to the blockbuster run of Carter II through IV, The Carter V's hype was impossible to match by the time it dropped in 2018. Still, the album met the colossal moment to the best of its ability: 'Uproar' remains a classic, and gave Wayne his first lead major radio hit as a lead artist in years.
Meanwhile, 'Mona Lisa' made good on the long-awaited sparring match between K-Dot and Weezy with a tongue-twisting flurry of a song, and Nicki Minaj offered an excellent R&B feature on 'Dark Side of the Moon.' Still, there were only a few obvious standout moments across the album, which is surprising considering its nearly hour-and-a-half runtime. While it's far from Weezy's best Carter entry, Tha Carter V was an undeniably solid return for Tunechi. — M.C.G.
The album that started it all. While Tha Block Is Hot announced Weezy's arrival, Tha Carter announced his candidacy for Greatest Rapper Alive status. With Mannie Fresh cooking up some of his most gourmet instrumentals ever, Lil Wayne completely shifted his style of rapping to a braggadocious flair heavily inspired by the elegance of Jay-Z. 'Go D.J.,' 'Earthquake' and 'This Is The Carter' are just a few of the classics that appeared on the project, and while even better Carter editions would soon follow, the first served as the rumble of thunder in the distance, signaling that a massive storm was coming. — M.C.G.
After clinching a 'three-peat' with his trio of Carter albums, Wayne salivated at the idea of securing another game-winning performance on Tha Carter IV. Tracks like '6 Foot 7 Foot,' 'Nightmares of the Bottom,' 'She Will' and 'John' showcased the New Orleans werewolf still operating near his peak. But the album lacked the horsepower that made Carter II and Carter III hum, and though it delivered another near-million in first-week sales, a few unfortunate missteps — including his limp shots at Pusha T on 'It's Good' and his drowsy, insipid take on romance in 'How to Love' — ultimately soured Tha Carter IV's potential to match its two predecessors. — C.L.
After establishing himself as one of hip-hop's most cerebral lyricists on Tha Carter II, Wayne had his sights set on mainstream dominance with Tha Carter III. Unlike its predecessor, Wayne's stab at pop superstardom was deliberate. Songs like 'Lollipop' and 'Mrs. Officer' were melodic ear candy, while records such as 'A Milli' and 'Mr. Carter' fortified his lyrical firepower. Wayne's transformation from Hot Boy sidekick to Rap Goblin was complete when he decoded his genius on this 2008 masterwork, becoming hip-hop's most undeniable typhoon. — C.L.
Sometimes, a rapper enters a zone that few have been able to enter. Fresh off the promising first entry in Tha Carter series, Wayne entered rarified air and delivered his first classic album, which then put him on an ascent that he's just now recently coming down from. Tha Carter II officially made Lil Wayne a superstar, putting him in the conversation for Best Rapper Alive with songs like 'Tha Mobb,' 'Money on My Mind,' and 'Hustler Musik,' all of which remain classics in his catalog.
And while those tracks foreshadowed what he had up his sleeve lyrically with his much talked about mixtape run that came after, a record like 'Shooter' featuring Robin Thicke showed that he also had the mainstream appeal — which we would see come to a head on the massive third Carter album, when he sold a mind-boggling one million copies during its first week. Tha Carter II was his launching pad into a new stratosphere. — A.D.
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PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ Outside the venue, I see a group of people in matching Kou Mariya shirts, and I try chatting up a friendly looking guy in a backwards ball cap and glasses. I ask him if they all came as a group. He tells me no; they just grouped up here because they're Mariya fans. His IRL friends wouldn't come. 'A lot of my friends are just kind of regular guys,' he tells me. 'They wanna watch like, UFC fights, and I'll go watch that [with them]. We just do the basic stuff, like watch sports. With them I just kinda do my normal stuff, and then I just kind of do my own thing out here with these guys,' he continues, pointing to the crowd. I ask him what sort of shows he usually goes to. 'I usually do a lot of hardcore concerts. Metalcore, hardcore, like a lot of mosh pits and stuff like that. But my latest one was a V4 concert,' he says, referring to a larger VTuber agency group called V4Mirai that Mariya is signed to. Then he pulls up his sleeve to show me a massive tattoo covering his forearm—a cutesy batlike mascot, a reference to Mariya's fans. 'She's my kami-oshi ,' he says, proudly. Kami-oshi: literally, ' god-push,' your ultimate favorite amongst your other favorites. Worthy of ink on skin. Other than him, though, I don't meet many 'conventional' music fans. Almost everyone else I ask about recent shows they've attended name-drops conventions, VTuber fan meetups, or other anime-related events. For most people I talk to in between sets, the music seems to be a bonus aspect of a VTuber they watch, not necessarily the main draw. Being at the show is a way to 'see' and support their oshi, and to be around other people who are into the same thing. Pretty similar to what brings most people to Anime Expo, which was also running that week in Los Angeles. Putting this on during Anime Expo is a smart move, and not just because it's convenient (one fan says they chartered a whole party bus to shuttle people from the convention to the concert). The cultures are very compatible, as there's a good amount of crossover from anime and idol-music fan culture in VTuber fanatics. One of the more obvious ones is the flower stand: a sort of collaborative display between independent fan groups and the artists themselves. Fans will pool money to buy elaborate flower arrangements; at the entrance of the venue is a life-size cutout of Mariya with a wreath of roses, complete with a message to the VTuber herself: 'Congratulations for making your Fantastic Reality dreams come true!' Underneath, there's a list of online handles of people who've contributed money or art to the display. This is the sort of thing you'd see at a J-pop concert. Fans independently deciding to form communities isn't unique to any music scene; but not every genre sees the artist management setting aside official space at a concert hall for these fans to display their enthusiasm. In general, VTuber fans are known for heavy spending when they like something. If you really want to show your support, you'll need a pair of light sticks so you can wave them in unison with the crowd when your oshi takes the stage. It simply won't do to bring your own from home—when Mariya takes the stage, you want to be glowing in the precise hue of deep red that everyone else is. So you want the official pair. A merch booth sells them at the front—about $60 per stick. A music purist might scoff at all this; to say that VTuber fans don't even like music, they just like anime, and that the whole scene is fake. Full disclosure here: I will admit that I walked into the venue with a touch of this mentality, but that slowly turned into an existential crisis: Who can say that their favorite genre isn't also fake? Hip-hop, despite being a commercial genre obsessed with 'reality,' has always had at best a tenuous relationship with the concept. Rick Ross took the name of an actual drug dealer and has tried to downplay his past job as a correctional officer. He still has fans. So does Drake, despite the fact that there is a televised record of the fact that he did not 'start from' anywhere near what a reasonable person would consider 'the bottom.' Lil Tecca gleefully admitted, on camera, that his first breakout single was full of fibs (he doesn't have a gun, doesn't own much designer fashion, has never been to Milan), but so what? It's a fun song, and I still like it. Punk, hip-hop, folk, and so on—fans continually foist 'authenticity' purity tests on their artists and each other—partially because we all know that our fandom is ultimately based on a mutually constructed fiction of what we hope or imagine the artist to be. But it's fun to pretend! And sometimes, it's nice to be in a room of people who want to pretend along with you. VTuber fans are just more straightforward, and less pretentious about the whole thing. PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ One of the more impressive things about the Fantastic Reality show is that it happened at all. As Mariya tells me, she simply decided she wanted to do a show and started hitting up other VTubers she liked and asking them to participate. She knows the audience: If you're into this sort of thing, the presence of acts like Japanese stadium-filler KAF and Indonesian virtual girl group JKT48V on the lineup would have been reason enough to buy a ticket. And Mariya herself has a big fan base as well, but she's nowhere near as well known as perhaps the most impressive name she got on the bill: Ironmouse, who once broke Kai Cenat's record for the most paid subscribers on Twitch. 'It isn't silly to be an anime girl on the internet.' Others have more resources. Hololive is able to put on multicountry tours easily, and unlike Mariya's show, they don't need to call in favors: They have their own stable of in-house VTuber talent who are able to speak and sing in English and Japanese. A couple days after Fantastic Reality, Hololive—whose parent company, Cover Corp, brought in over $140 million in merch alone last fiscal year—make their second appearance at Dodger Stadium, with three virtual anime girls singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' in cutesy voices during the seventh-inning stretch. Not everyone is a fan: 'Oh, so that's why we lost', one commenter says on a Dodgers fan Instagram account. 'God was punishing us.' But the fact that the event happened at all shows how much investment is already happening in hopes that VTuber culture can make money in the mainstream. Mariya's ventures are on a much smaller scale, but for her fans, Fantastic Reality is a huge deal. So much so that one of them helped her tell the world that it was happening— by putting her in their private plane and flying her over Los Angeles, so that she could livestream the announcement from 2,000 feet in the sky. (Out of respect for kayfabe, I did not ask how this was accomplished.) 'This project is a challenge to myself,' Mariya tells me. 'How can I make all those connections and prove to not just myself, but to a lot of other people, that you know, it isn't silly to be an anime girl on the internet?' PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ PHOTOGRAPH: ERICA HERNANDEZ VTuber artists probably don't signal the end of music any more than the Gorillaz heralded the end of concerts when they started putting cartoons on stage in 2001. I'm more concerned that VTuber musicians are going to be replaced, and what that could mean for the rest of music. The stage seems pretty well set already: Timbaland has co-launched a startup that wants to use AI-generated 'artists' to help create music. Velvet Sundown, an apparently AI-generated psych rock band with over a million monthly listeners on Spotify, has been twisting music journalists' brains for a few weeks, mostly because it sounds pretty decent. And that's only the most recent high-profile case: The lo-fi beats scene has been struggling with AI for a while now. Then, there's Bloo, an AI-generated VTuber created by a popular YouTuber who voluntarily replaced himself because he was getting burned out, but realized if he wasn't onscreen, he wouldn't be able to continue his business. As he told CNBC: 'The flaw in this equation is the human, so we need to somehow remove the human.' Bloo's creator says it's already brought in seven figures. Put the two together: Couldn't we 'remove the human' from the equation of VTuber music? An AI VTuber singer wouldn't need to take breaks. 'She' could endlessly entertain 'her' fans with an unlimited stream of cozy chat and cute tunes. There is an obvious financial incentive here, if not for individual creators, then for corporations; venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz posted an article last year in which it put AI companions and VTubing together on an 'Anime Market Map,' signaling an obvious interest in figuring out how to make money more efficiently off fans. It also doesn't help that xAI's Grok just dropped a sexy 'AI companion' that looks like it could be Mariya's little sister. Whereas conventional hip-hop or rock audiences have largely turned up their nose at AI creep, VTuber fans are already used to an abstracted version of music entertainment—wouldn't they be the earliest adopters of AI? Mariya disagrees. 'I think that the culture in VTubing is that if you use AI, it's really looked down upon,' she says. 'In our sphere, we're pretty safe from that.' She does understand that AI is starting to encroach on everything, though, as do the show's promoters—the press release for the concert promises none of the performers will be AI. 'One of the things that I was very vocal about for this concert is that I did not want AI involvement in it,' she says. 'I think that it would be a little bit insulting.' 'VTubing has grown because of artists, you know, our visuals are made by human artists. Our rigging is made by human riggers. Our songs are made by humans. A lot of the fan art that's made, like the people who watch us, are humans. I think we should do our best to make sure that they always have a place here.' Mariya has a point. Maybe because of the spillover from anime fan culture, which geeks out about the voice actors of their favorite anime almost as much as the drawings themselves, VTuber fans are also interested in the behind-the-scenes artistry of their oshi. Some agency pages for VTubers include credits for the person who designed the avatar—one of the few exceptions made in the kayfabe rule. At the end of the Fantastic Reality concert, the screens show a long credits roll, including artists and names of the writers of each song. People actually stick around to watch it and cheer. I want to believe Mariya—that VTuber culture has spent so much time close to the edge of the human-created and the machine-generated that they've figured out how to draw boundaries and protect the human side. Maybe she's right: They have had longer than the rest of us to think through these problems. Three weeks after the show, Fantastic Reality's closing singer, Ironmouse, posted a video explaining that she was leaving her agency, Vshojo, alleging that it withheld over half a million dollars in payment, not to her, but to the Immune Deficiency Foundation. Ironmouse has previously shared that she has a 'low to near-non-functioning immune system' that forces her to be isolated for long periods. (Vshojo has since announced that they are out of money and are shutting down. WIRED reached out to Vshojo for comment but did not immediately receive a response.) In the days after Ironmouse's post, her fans not only expressed support but have helped raise over $1.2 million for the foundation. VTuber fans still care that there are humans involved. Everyone is pretending in the same room together, and perhaps more importantly, they want to support the humans who keep the story going. If the corporations are able to ruin VTuber culture, I don't think the rest of us stand a chance.