Day 93: "With You" feat. Drake – I Am Not a Human Being , 2010I can't, off the top of my head, think of any particularly good moments of Lil Wayne embracing some sort of paganism in his work, other than all of the moments. But in a practical sense, how does one talk about the winter solstice, which is today, and invoke the proper arcane spirituality via the medium of Lil Wayne lyrics? To that question, I say fuck it, the best approach might be moonlight and candles and shit.That's not just a VICE-y piece of foul-mouthed hyperbole about candlelight rituals, either. I would like to call forth one of my favorite Weezy Wee lyrical flourishes, his hook of "With You," which is a song featuring your guys' favorite rapper Drake. I've always enjoyed the hook of this song because it captures Lil Wayne's essence so thoroughly: He can't be romantic without a hint of irreverence cutting through the inherent sincerity of romance. Plus, he can't be too bothered with the details of being romantic, so he groups the rest of things together under the designation of "shit." It's actually a pretty sane approach to romance in general: What fun are moonlight and candles without a little wackiness getting in the way? Wayne has romantic lines here, and the best ones work in part because they are a bit goofy: "When she check her watch, it's never time to go," he quips. "Smoke a lot of weed but I could never forget you," he adds. Unrelatedly, I have to hand it to Wayne for being perhaps the only person ever to work a lyric about earlobes into a song.But anyway, today is the winter solstice, so light some candles and enjoy the moonlight and shit: It's the longest night of the year, and tomorrow it will start getting dark later for the first time since June.Photo by Claudia Dea via FlickrFollow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.
Advertisement