A Year of Lil Wayne: Curren$y's "Fat Albert"

Day 47: "Fat Albert" – Curren$y feat. Lil Wayne, The Carrollton Heist , 2016

Another Saturday, another chance to roll up some weed and listen to Wayne and Curren$y rap over Alchemist beats​​​. I appreciate that Curren$y cameos​ have become a subtle theme for the weekends​. This song is from this year! Did you know that Curren$y has released like five projects this year already? I mean, of course he has, but still. For the last two months he's released on the 30th of the month, and I gather he plans to continue doing so. He also has this tape, a loose sequel to Covert Coup, his other fully Alchemist-produced project. I love that for Curren$y rap is just an endless tapestry (a rap-estry, if you will) to make stuff that sounds cool and play around with different producers and find a million ways to talk about his cars (here it's a Rolls, but you have to pay attention to the lyrics). It's never about making a hot song, and it never has been. Curren$y will last forever.

Speaking of people who have been quietly making tons of music this year, there is, of course, also Wayne, who also secretly goes off for one two-minute verse on this Curren$y tape because hey, it's a great place to do so. It's a great verse: He mentions his school days and losing his virginity to "Jenny that went to Beauregard" and he's full of clever wordplay—"pussies get the dildo I get the deal done"; "tryna see my mansions get expansions"; "fuck a heated argument we let the heat argue." He also acknowledges that his own joke about smoking until his eyes look Asian is offensive but then shrugs it off in a so-what, it's all just rap fun and games, which you don't hear someone do on a track every day. He uses the word "freakazoid."

He also has this little gem of an observation, which sounds a lot like it's about… Drake? "You know you never know your lover 'til she cheat on you / You know you never know your brother til he dethrone you." I wonder how Wayne feels about Drake these days. I will always maintain that Wayne has the better catalog, but it must grate a little to see Drake become such a star while you're instead stuck in a lawsuit with your old mentor and widely seen as past your prime.

As for those designations of Wayne as past his prime, though: If this beat weren't so laid back and Wayne weren't so chill about rapping on it, it might stand out more that he just casually does somersaults through this verse for-fucking- ever. Holy shit! I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wayne is rapping better than just about anyone in 2016.

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