“Cut school, sell crack, sorry I’m just thinkin’ back/C-call me crazy, I’ve been called worse/It’s like I have it all, but what’s it all worth?” Wayne sings over swelling power chords. Carter,” “Paradice” is Wayne’s most epic storytelling moment. “Knockout” is the sweetest duet Wayne and Nicki have ever pulled off, and it’s tinged with that same nostalgic energy Wayne was after on “Prom Queen.” It’s Wayne doing his best Yellowcard, Good Charlotte, or Fall Out Boy (FOB loved a non-sequitur just as much as Weezy). “Prom Queen” is, in many ways, the most vivid song Wayne has ever made, and was clearly influenced by the pop-punk acts he came up alongside. While Wayne was known for the non-sequitur rapping style he helped popularize, he wasn’t afraid of storytelling (see “Dr. The instrumentals sound more like Travis Barker remixes of hip-hop beats than they do full-on rock music, as evidenced on the Barker-assisted power ballad “One Way Trip.” But Wayne’s signature croak can occupy just about any space on the spectrum between rapping and singing, so it’s hard to notice when he switches between the two.
That said, Rebirth is really a rap-rock hybrid more than a straight rock album. If he was already a rock star, figuratively speaking, he was going to become one in a literal sense. But, as usual, Wayne was going to do what Wayne wanted. No one was asking for this kind of record from Wayne: hip-hop fans wanted him to rap rock fans didn’t want him to rock. Perhaps Wayne himself wouldn’t categorize Rebirth as experimental, but its have-a-go nature is hard to deny. Hip-hop wasn’t especially known for its experimental passion projects at the time. What emerged was something nobody could have predicted.
Rebirth was originally touted as a reissue of Tha Carter III, with new features and bonus tracks, before Wayne decided it was going to be an entirely new album, potentially even a double-album, packaged with Tha Carter IV. In a moment that now seems absurd, the retailer shipped hundreds of copies of Rebirth over a month before the album’s scheduled release date, on February 2, 2010. And then Wayne experienced the most legendary leak in recent memory – but it wasn’t hackers or a lost hard drive that were to blame, it was Amazon. As Rebirth producer David Banner put it, “He gave away a million dollars’ worth of s_t so people can buy an album for $9.99.” But a few years later, in the run-up to Rebirth, the industry was taking leaks more seriously. When Wayne stopped seeing other rappers as competition, he was looking at Fall Out Boy and their contemporaries as both his opponents and his inspiration.Īcross 20, Wayne built up a lot of his momentum with intentional leaks that were happening on an almost daily basis. Wayne had been making rock references for years, but it was especially hard to forget his appearance on the remix of Shop Boyz’ “Party Like A Rockstar,” nearly four years before Rebirth was unleashed. To those paying attention, this shift was anything but sudden. At the same time, indie, emo, and alt.rock had taken over from grunge and harder rock as the music of choice for kids with guitars. The coastal boom-bap and G-funk of the 90s gave way to increasingly synth-heavy melodies and a cornucopia of DIY elements facilitated by the internet. Hip-hop spent most of the 00s moving further into the mainstream than ever before. “He gave away a million dollars’ worth of s_t”
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