Why Lil Wayne Needs Mystikal's Swag

Bear with me for a moment, but who remembers the plot to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me? It’s OK, we can recap. In the film, Dr Evil invents a time machine which enables him to go back in time and steal Powers’ mojo, momentarily imbuing Evil with the charm and charisma of the rug-chested 60s swinger. Heather Graham stars as the sassy CIA agent, Felicity Shagwell. Michael York is involved somehow, and at one point Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello do a song together. Actually, maybe this isn’t a useful analogy, but look, the point is that Lil Wayne could use a little of whatever his label-mate Mystikal is running on right now. A decade ago this would seem unlikely. Weezy was on the cusp of the mid 00s run which would cement his name in the history books, while Mystikal was facing a six year stint behind bars. These two totems of New Orleans rap have experienced success in very different ways; one had his mic cut-off just after his commercial peak, while the other has burned himself out to a dull glow, with the smoke now growing increasingly toxic. Listening to Lil Wayne at the moment is genuinely upsetting, like meeting an ex-partner who’s unrecognisable through some bullshit affectation they’ve picked up. All his old tricks are still there –the voice, the punchlines, the weirdness – but the generator which used to make it all work has long since packed up. When Weezy was at his peak he had complete control over his style, applying it to the popular (and some of the forgettable) rap tracks of the day with memorable results. On features, he knew how to turn good songs into great ones. He would interact with whatever was happening in rap better than anyone else, dismissing his rivals with a cutting succinctness. Take his clever, affecting post-Katrina verse from Outkast’s "Hollywood Divorce", his head-in-the-clouds "Sky is the Limit" freestyle, or the way he blurted out his soul onto Kanye’s "See You in My Nightmares". Here was a rapper who willed himself to be the best in the world enough to make it actually happen. Fast forward to 2013, and Wayne is more like an amateur skateboarder who happens to be able to rhyme a bit. While guys like Future, Kevin Gates and Rocko are taking his auto-tune experiments and pushing them to new conclusions, Wayne just appears on songs now and I couldn’t tell you what he brings aside from his name. His rhymes aren’t straight forward so it’s not like his brain has stopped working, but listening to him you get the feeling that he’s given all he has to give. The routine oral sex punchlines on Future’s "My Bitches Love Me" are typical of any recent Wayne verse, delivered almost at a laboured sigh compared with the mischievous pleasure which laces Dedication 2’s "Workin Em" or his 2006 feature on Cam’Ron’s "Suck it or Not".

While this kind of on-record exhaustion is not uncommon, it has intensified as rap hurtles into the digital age. The demand placed on any rising street rapper can’t possibly aid creativity, as the continual peddling of mixtapes, videos, freestyles and features can be exhausting enough to listen to - never mind to record. A rapper’s golden period may contain the same number of releases as twenty years ago, except now it is increasingly condensed into periods of two or perhaps three years. Wayne’s build might have been a ten-year process, but the way he ruled the roost in 05-06, or Gucci Mane in 08-09, or even how Odd Future shook things up in 09-10 is indicative of how things work now; fleeting moments on the boil, more often than not followed by a critical backlash that was inevitable given the volume of material being released.

So perhaps it isn’t Wayne’s fault that he now delivers verses like the one on Will.I.Am’s uber-cynical "Scream and Shout" remix;

Having said that, it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. In terms of record sales Wayne is easily the headline rapper on the song, but placed after the insanity and fun of Waka Flocka’s verse, the lack of fucks he has to left give is painfully apparent. The difference being that Waka probably knows this song will be horrible but he isn’t gonna let that reflect on him, while Wayne just looks happy to be invited to the same room as Britney Spears. But while Waka's energy on the "Scream and Shout" remix might have highlighted Weezy's exhaustion, Cash Money does have its own ace in that department. Mystikal's post-prison resurgence has not been without its snags of course (most significantly, being sent back to prison), but he's never had a problem once in the recording booth. Hoping to make rap his number one concern in 2013, Mystikal has barked, shouted and funked his way into the limelight recently in the way that only he can.

"Hit Me" was one of the best songs of 2012 not because he captured the zeitgeist or reinvented the wheel in some way, but simply because of Mystikal’s excitement at the prospect of making rap music. “I got drums and shit!” he exclaims mid-verse, before continuing to name a list of other instruments he has at his disposal like a kid showing off his Christmas presents. "Hit Me" was no one-off either; on "Fly Rich" he manages to out-hype Meek Mill like it ain’t no thing, while "Mamma Cry" is a frantic struggle-rap oozing with desire. Having lost such a sizeable chunk of his career, music is a priority for Mystikal now in a way that it isn’t for Wayne, and he even states this dependence in explicit terms; “rap was there for me, more than my closest homie,” he spits on "Mamma Cry".

It would be misleading to cite Mystikal’s recent form as a resurgence because his energy for this has never been called into question, but at 42 years old, it’s impressive that he still brings it as hard as anyone that popped up in his place. It would also be grossly unfair to hold Wayne’s decline up to Mystikal’s standards for liveliness, because the two clearly have very different talents. Having said that, though, if even a shred of Mystikal’s enthusiasm was to rub off on Lil Wayne it would undoubtedly be a good thing. Meanwhile, Mystikal will soon release Original – his first album for 12 years - and I’ll be surprised if it isn’t the best thing that Cash Money releases this year.

Kyle is still busy perfecting his Mystikal bark, so it’s probably safer to talk to him on the internet. Find him on Twitter @KyleEllison