After more than two years of anticipation, Lil Wayne has recently announced that Tha Carter V is coming soon. The cover art seems like one the best yet, but is the quality going to stay satisfy the listener or will it have the same fate as his last projects and disappoint?

In today’s Song of the Day, the Underground Flux takes a look at when Lil Wayne was lyrically in his prime. After the release of Tha Carter III in 2008, the New Orleans-born rapper boomed and the entire rap industry began to revolve around him.

Dr. Carter is arguably one of the best tracks off the album because of its creativity and lyrical value. The concept of a rapper taking on the task of a doctor and save his competition from lack of rap skills was something never seen before.

The track is filled with double entendres, intricate rhyme schemes, and amusing lyrics, making the listener enjoy the song throughout.

Okay respect is in the heart

So that’s where I’mma start

And a lot of heart patients don’t make it

[…]

Arthritis in my hand from writing



Lil Wayne kicks three verses in “Dr. Carter,” and in each one he attempts to save a different rapper from a certain weakness. Those range from lack of concepts and originality to wack flows and metaphors.

In the first two verses, or “patients,” of the track, Wayne is not able to save their life. The third one, however, lives. The patient he saves? Hip hop.

“Hip hop is dead,” Nas infamously claimed just two years before the release of “Dr. Carter.” With that in mind, the listener comes to know that the entire meaning behind the track was not to save certain individuals from wack rhymes, but hip hop as a whole.

Strong signs of life

Where’s the stitches, here’s the knife

Smack his face, his eyes open, I reply “What a night”

“Welcome back, hip-hop — I saved your life”

In the grand scheme of things however, Lil Wayne is attempting to revive and the genre and keep it “healthy” with his musical abilities. The production engineered by Swizz Beatz is neither mind-blowing nor something to be impressed by, but its drums and trumpets go well with Wayne’s pace and subject matter.

This concept tackled by Wayne back in ’08 leaves today’s listener wondering: Is hip hop starting to die again with the emergence of trap and drill? Also, who will be the “doctor?”