Greetings, some of you may know me and some of you may not. With that said, allow myself to introduce myself. IPOPPEDOFF is your resident AllHipHop.com Music Editor, connoisseur of fine rhyme, and authority on all things fresh.
At AHH, we take our jobs very seriously. We fight, debate and trade stares when discussing different aspects of music. We’re not like these other fugazi online websites and print publications that contribute to the bullsh*t that Jeru Da Damaja had nightmares about in 1998. They sit comfortably in their coffee internet cafes and promote these ham and eggers that have no business on the microphone or even worse talk greasy through blogs but are suckers in real life.
Now that is out of the way, let’s talk about “A Milli.” While I’m not a huge fan of Lil Wayne, I must say duke ripped this to shreds. To the point where I ride around in my juice box with an extra mean bop when I play this. I see I’m not the only one feeling this joint as everybody and their mother has hopped on this beat.
On the eve of the release of Tha Carter III, we provide you with fifteen different versions “A Milli.” We give you a good variety of participants, with some young guns, respected vets, and a triple OG in the mix. Some went in like their deal was on the line and some half stepped with one foot in the grave. Let's get into it.

Cassidy

Generally speaking it seems most accept the fact that Cassidy can spit; whether or not he can make a dope album is left to be seen. When I originally heard about him rapping on this, I thought he would have blacked out but maybe not. Cass takes a light approach on here with no change in his usual battle fair, but still delivers some stinging bars none the less: “I’m a pimp but I don’t rock crocodile shoes / I’ll pop the tool and make a ni*** crocodile food.”

Charles Hamilton

Before he got scooped up by any label, he was hitting up all the unsigned artist showcases in the city. Charles is on some regular ish; no gun busting, or triple beam dreams. While I appreciate dude doing him, I wasn’t with it. Not once while I was listening to this was I surprised by a crazy metaphor or any witty wordplay.

Chip Tha Ripper

With a name like Chip Tha Ripper, one would think he would knock this one out the park. But with a stick in the mud energy and little microphone presence this ends up being a mess. I’m outraged.

Cory Gunz

I don’t know why everyone is hopping on the bandwagon now; Cory has been nice for many moons. The son of Peter has put the hurt on many beats in his time and this was no exception jack. Gunz runs through this joint with ease with a lightning quick delivery (“Pass you with a flow you could never put a brake on / And I break on anything a ni*** take on / Feel the napalm from my trey arm / Straight long, throw a ni*** like I'm Akon”).

Lil Wayne is easily the most hyped artist in the music industry over the past couple of years. The Carter III is, without a doubt, the most anticipated album of the year. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s dissect Tha Carter III without an extensive character analysis of Lil Wayne. We all know his behavior is equal to that of a bonafide rock star – whether we like it or not. And whether you like him or not, everyone is curious what Lil Wayne can do for a wheezing Hip Hop industry on Tha Carter III.

This review isn’t about Lil Wayne’s antics. Nor is it about who he is as a person. This is about the immensely anticipated album that is Tha Carter III. As with everything Weezy F Baby does, this album will be just as talked about as his Styrofoam cup toting, rock star image. Tha Carter III encompasses it all: The good, the bad and definitely the ugly.

There are those that perceive Wayne as the new “greatest rapper alive” because of his numerous guest appearances and his progression from Hot Boy to sizzling emcee. There are others who simply aren’t too sure that the hype is well deserved. Tha Carter III speaks to both critics and fans loud and clear.

There are moments that Lil Wayne puts together that simply electrify. The David Axelrod sampling on “Dr. Carter” is Weezy at his finest. He crafts a luminous concept of utilizing his rhymes to breathe life into a culture on life support. Too many quotable moments to cite here, but just know that Wayne accelerates through the Swizz Beatz offering as if not only his life, but the existence of Hip Hop culture, depended on it. As “Lollipop” became the questionable lead single, it is hard to believe that there is a more radio friendly offering than the collaborative effort featuring Babyface with Kanye West behind the boards on “Comfortable.” As Babyface careens in and out of Mr. West’s soulful offering, Wayne pulls off an easy to digest joint. The brooding guitar plucks and marching drums of “Shoot Me Down” pull off an intense musical atmosphere. Wayne does the song justice by not overpowering the production and instead allowing it to build momentum as he creeps through with lines like: “Pop I did it to ‘em/I’m a bastard/and I’m a do it again like nigga backwards/cause these niggas backwards/but behind us/Now watch me get high like time’s up.”

Unfortunately, all is not well in Wayne’s world. What is truly unfortunate is how “Mr. Carter” underwhelms. The Lil Wayne/Jay-Z collaboration looks too good to be true on paper – and unfortunately it is. Both Wayne and Jay give solid performances, but neither take it to that next level as many would expect. One would also assume that T-Pain hopping aboard “Got Money” would equal instant success. That certainly is not the case. Both have put on stellar guest offerings in the past but don’t seem to mesh well over the Play-n-Skillz production. Elsewhere, Kanye West and Deezle serve up a three course platter of beat building ready to be torn to shreds on “Let The Beat Build” but Wayne just doesn’t seem to have the appetite to eat this track alive.

The album also gets lost in Wayne’s spewing of gibberish throughout. On many of the songs Wayne bounds about aimlessly as he seems content with putting words together for the sake of putting them together. “Playing With Fire” finds Wayne all over the place lyrically and upon further inspection his rhymes don’t make too much sense and it becomes easy to believe that he doesn’t write any of his lyrics down. For further evidence of the often confusing ramblings, the sprawling (and aptly titled) “Don’tGetIt” flounders around for just under ten minutes and will leave even the biggest Weezy pole jockey dozing off during his misdirected rants and long winded clowning of Al Sharpton.

Of all the “WTF” moments on the album, “Mrs. Officer” is the definitive head scratcher as Wayne discusses sexing down female police officers. An awkward moment indeed. What makes “Mrs. Officer” a humongous flagrant foul is Bobby Valentino’s mimicking of a police siren on the uninspiring hook. His claims of being a Martian on “Phone Home” aren’t too far fetched, but the hook borders on becoming a bit strange. The claims of being “rare like Mr. Clean with hair” are clever, but the spaced out production of Cool & Dre, coupled with the awkward sci-fi hook, can be a bit much on the senses.

But with pulse pounding moments like “A Milli” pounced and ripped to shreds by Weezy, all is not lost on Tha Carter III. The expectations may have been set too high for Wayne as he too seems to have become lost in his own intoxicating cloud of hype. The blame could partially be put on the fans for magnifying the concept that Wayne can do no wrong because they salivate to fill the void that Jay-Z has left in the game. There is no doubt that Dwayne Carter is a talented artist who has the potential to become a king amongst peasants in the industry. But like Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Anfernee Hardaway and Grant Hill early in their careers, a premature crowning of being the next #23 can be equally damaging as it can be inspiring to a young career. Tha Carter III is flashes of brilliance surrounded by a number of rookie mistakes made by a young veteran of the game. Let’s see what Wayne does when stuck under the microscope of criticism and continuous comparisons to the greatest artists of our time from here on out.

The long-awaited release of Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III begins, quite aptly, with an echoed and resoundingly syrupy "yezzzir." It really doesn't get any simpler than that--a confident affirmation of Wayne's arrival. But it's drenched in the New Orleans MC's unapproachably alien swagger. Snarled from the back of the recording booth (presumably located inside a space ship or styrofoam cup), Weezy slowly steps towards the microphone before delivering his opening darts filled with magic dick jokes ("Abracadabra/I'm up like Viagra" and Sports Center references. Produced by Maestro, "3 Peat" is the urgent stream of consciousness that Wayne has built his modern reputation upon: bizarre word associations and fuck-you repetitions that can only make sense (or at least sound dope) coming from one man's mouth. Pause.

Urgency is a strong point of reference for Wayne. On his best tracks, it powers those steam-rolled raps like the alternative would cease his existence. Sometimes it's coldly calculating ("Get 'Em" from Dedication 2), sometimes it's dizzyingly intense ("Knuck If You Buck Freestyle" from some mixtape), sometimes it's lethargically removed from reality ("Outstanding" from some other mixtape), but it's always driving. While all three of these personalities make appearances on Tha Carter III, it's the urgency to deliver a classic album that is pushing Wayne's strange cart for this go around.

I have no qualms with putting Dedication 2 and Da Drought 3 in my own pantheon of rap classics, but the lack of a properly released full-length that stands the test of time among critics and fans is the backbone for all arguments that Wayne is not, as he says, the best rapper alive. Added to the two and half year anticipation since the release of Tha Carter II--despite the countless songs and guest appearances that dominated rap's dialogue during the span--there's a pressured desire from Wayne to make something that transcends. Even the much-maligned cover art falls in line with baby-adorned certified classics like Illmatic and Ready to Die.

As a sum of its parts, Tha Carter III does not transcend, but a good number of those parts are otherworldly enough. "Dr. Carter" has already been dissected quite studiously, but its mid-'90s backpack rap stance on wack MCs is in a class of its own. No other rapper could pull off a seemingly silly concept with the voracious attitude that Wayne uses to deliver his prescription to hip-hop--not just in 2008--but throughout its history, breaking down exactly what it is that he does right. And like Jay-Z's "22 Two's," it's the mere act of audacity in attempting and succeeding in this concept that matters most. Just as thankfully, that's the last real concept record on Wayne's new album (unless you count the "Fuck the Police" love affair twist of "Mrs. Officer").

The rest of Tha Carter III's highlights are of the minimalistic drug-induced haze variety. Taking a step back towards hip-hop from "I Feel Like Dying", tracks like "Shoot Me Down" allow the musicality of Weezy's voice in metered spoken word to take center stage. One of the homies called Kanye West's production here "spaghetti millitaristic" and its sparse plodding reaches an epic height of terseness without overreaching for a crescendo that just isn't needed. (Lines like: "I ain't kinda hot/I'm sauna/I sweat money/And the bank is my shower"...don't hurt either.) "Misunderstood," the album's closer, begins with a gorgeously solemn sample of familiar refrain before ending with a six-plus minute rant on the state of being black in America (topics include crack vs. cocaine laws, sex offenders, the media and a big fuck you to Al Sharpton). It's the type of transparent attempt at transcendence that only concludes albums made to be remembered, but because Wayne is swimming through codeine and weed smoke and not left-wing talking points, it actually works.

Tha Carter 3 is not a classic, but its collection of classic moments and even more classic missteps are worthy of remembrance. There's the typical T-Pain play for radio play that may just get me dancing one day, but feels like a sore thumb among more minimal fare. The swirling Babyface-assisted and Kanye-produced "Comfortable" never attains any sort of emotional resonance (like Carter II's "Receipt" or "Hustler Muzik") and falls flat like the similarly-themed Common songs that this beat recalls. "Nothin On Me"--despite the most decadent Weezy-like punchilne not spat by Weezy (Juelz's "I get money out the ass/That's some expensive shit")--fails to achieve anything other than the boiler-plate NYC grind track it's supposed to be.

But then there's the Jay-Z collaboration, "Mr. Carter." Wayne intros the song by saying that it makes him feel big (not fat, but like "colossal") and such a sentiment is totally apt. A direct nod at the direction that kicked off this whole Weezy craze, its healthily chipmunked soul sample and bouncing piano balances out the strained urgency of Wayne's voice, taking the edge off his anxiety just enough. And maybe that's how we need to view this record--a little less anxious in our anticipation and balanced out with a little more enjoyment. Then, it just might be a classic.

On Behalf of Lil' Wayne, thank you everyone for entering.

Winner will be contact privately tomorrow morning and then posted here.

Thank you!

A lot of questions have been asked about when the contest ends.

The contest ends June 3rd.

Good Luck!