A Year of Lil Wayne: The Best Thing Yet

Day 164: "Best Thing Yet" –  The Drought Is Over 6 , 2007

Lil Wayne is notorious for being in his own world and, frankly, not giving much of a shit about anyone or anything. So one of the most charming Lil Wayne obsessions is his long-running love of Anita Baker, the celebrated, eight-time Grammy-winning 80s and 90s R&B singer, whom he has referenced repeatedly in songs over the years (i.e. "Sittin' in the coupe, lookin' like a racer / top peeled back like the skin of a potato / seat way back, listenin' to Anita Baker / ridin' by myself, smokin' weed by the acre"). In 2011, Wayne even met Anita Baker, inspiring one of his most enthusiastic tweets:

And so it's a shame that this song, in which Wayne samples Anita Baker, ended up as merely a leak that never saw a commercial release. Wayne even raps his way into the sample, going, "and that's Ms. Baker saying that I'm the (best thing yet)." It's a solid track, although it's too much of a sketch to fully count as a great song. Wayne suggests at the beginning that he's going to get Kanye West and Common on the remix, so clearly he was intending to do more with it.

Instead it's mostly him noodling around over the beat and shouting out the producer, Deezle. But it bears saying that this is a) exactly the kind of beat Lil Wayne loves, especially around this time, and b) a good example of how even Wayne dicking around is an incredible rapper. Among his quips are, "we prefer red carpet if the floor's not clean" and "you against me is like Man Vs. Wild / me against you is like man versus child." And then there's this fun little run at the end, where he goes:

This sounds a lot like a Kanye beat, huh? And it has an Anita sample. It's basically Wayne's casual homage to other music he likes, and who can argue with that? It would have been great to see what Wayne might have done with the song had it not ended up scrapped and leaked, but, as it is, there's still plenty to appreciate.

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