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Music

A Year of Lil Wayne: "Look at Me," Which Absolutely Does Not Feature Juvenile

"Four was mild but five is so wild" made the comparison between '400 Degreez' and '500 Degreez' even more explicit.

Day 204: "Look at Me" – 500 Degreez, 2002

If yesterday's post was a great example of Wayne and Juvie teaming up together, all it takes is fast forwarding three years to find a great example of Wayne and Juvie not teaming up at all. In fact, you'll find Wayne taking shots at his former fellow Hot Boy. Although Wayne was supposedly conflicted about going after Juvie—that was more Birdman's grudge—and expressed remorse over it in later years, the two of them took their fair share of shots at each other at the time, including, of course, the very album title 500 Degreez being a shot at Juve's 400 Degreez. Here, the first song on the album, Wayne quips that "four was mild but five is so wild," making that point explicit. He also says, for good measure, that he's the "only Cash Money Hot Boy that stood still / I got a good deal."

Does Wayne deliver on the promise? Throughout the course of the album he puts up a more valiant effort than he is given credit for, and even here it's clear that Wayne is a supremely capable rapper. But if you were given the choice between this song and the first actual song on 400 Degreez, which is "Ha," you would be truly insane to think that Wayne had come out on top.

Nonetheless, Wayne is a good rapper, and there's no reason you can't enjoy him gallivanting all over this beat. In particular, I'm a fan of the third verse, which ends with these inspirational lines: "I rolls by you with my seat reclining / when I stop rims don't keep spinning they keep shining / money don't stop, keep spinning and keep grinding / Cash Money what you hollering, huh?" Let those be an inspiration to keep shining and grinding and all of that, even when Juvenile is kind of owning your whole existence (which for most of us who aren't Lil Wayne, is all the time).

Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.