“Rebirth’s” first week tracking here.

Holla.

Lil Wayne = Rockstar... not really

With the impending release of Lil Wayne’s “Rebirth”, can we talk about how much of an epic misstep this is gonna be. The Chicago Sun-Times Jim DeRogatis spake thusly:

“How could anyone have thought this forced, joyless, plodding Frankenstein’s mess was worth the trouble of releasing?”

Right before he gave it 1/4 stars.

Wayne’s claimed that his inspiration for this was Kanye exercise-in-going-to-the-left “808s & Heartbreak.” As a rule, concept/”artistic statement” albums are a terrible idea that never pan out. “808s” was a rare exception to said rule. Based on “Prom Queen” alone (which dropped in spring ’09 btw…you know, back when “Rebirth” was supposed to drop), it was clear that “Rebirth” would adhere to the rule like a damn Army colonel. It’s understandable from an artist-relations standpoint that Cash Money / Universal would want to let Wayne do whatever he wanted after selling a million units of “The Carter III” in a week, but cot damn. For one thing, the whole rock/rap shit hasn’t worked since Ice-T came out with that Bodycount group in the ’90s. And it’s a shame that Wayne’s falling right into the dumbed-up cliche of what rap/rock is when projects like Blakroc get a collective eye-roll by the buying public. But whatever. Wayne put his foot down and now “Rebirth” will be the last thing we get from him till he gets out of prison. Sucks too, cuz he demonstrated on recent mixtape “No Ceilings” that he can still dumb out and just spit and murder some beats like whoa. Illbert Garenas’ first week sales prediction for “Rebirth”: 100 – 150k.