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Canwest News Service
Rapper Lil Wayne is taking life's roadblocks all in stride.
He's looking down the barrel of a year-long stint in prison for weapon and drug offences, yet steel bars won't stop this Martian from owning our world with his bizarre and completely genius rhyme flow.
He has appeared on nearly 20 (!) singles this year – from Madonna's Revolver to his own Prom Queen – and he's just released a new mixtape, No Ceilings, to promote the Dec. 15 release of Rebirth, his long-awaited rock/rap album.
Following mixtape tradition, Weezy grabs the beats from some of this summer's biggest singles and turns them into his own weirdo alien versions. The Black Eyed Peas' summer anthem, I Gotta Feeling becomes I Got No Ceilings, a chronic-laced see-ya-in-a-year jam with the promise that, no matter what, anything can happen tonight.
3 Deep's Watch My Shoes becomes Weezy's sex anthem. Jay-Z's Death of Auto- Tune gives Lil Wayne the ability to show off his catlike ability to land on his feet, even though they will be shackled for the next year. Also featured is Hova's Run This Town, Kid Cudi's Lady Gaga-sampled, Make Her Say and Beyonce's powerful electro-hop track, Video Dreams.
Weezy's ability to take these established hits and make them his own shows, once again, that he can mash-up anything and turn it into gold.
Of course, this is all coming from Young Money Entertainment, the same cats that released Canadian rapper Drake's could've-been-an-album mixtape, So Far Gone. They've mastered the mixtape game that 50 Cent revolutionized earlier this decade – turning free gifts to music lovers into a viable income stream.
Lil Wayne's last mixtape, Dedication 3, sold 70,000 copies, despite being free for download. Any repeated success with No Ceilings – available at weareyoungmoney.com – circumvents Weezy's parent label, Universal. Mixtapes are bootlegs and technically illegal, but what labels probably see is that mixtapes feed more money into tours, official releases and single sales. Whatever money will be made off this mixtape will end up going back into Weezy's pockets via his label, Young Money, but it's a small trade for what Universal makes off his official releases.
With the acceptance of this file-sharing society, Lil Wayne and his crew have found the secret to selling records. Create a high-quality product, and the people will come around. It seems to be the way it works for the Louisiana rapper and Young Money, as they obviously have No Ceilings when it comes to raising the level of high-quality results, at the lowest price possible.
Taz Dhariwal, Edmonton Journal
