Young Money, 2009: Lil Wayne lands on slightly wobbly legs following one of the greatest runs in rap history and extends each arm, for support, to a couple of ascendant stars he’s helped discover, recruit, and mold. To his left is Drake, a kid climbing the ranks and finding chart success despite—or with the help of—his soft Canadian heart and stint as a television actor. To his right is Nicki Minaj, the Queens-bred Trinidadian princess with a handful of dextrous features and a couple of fireball mixtapes behind her, the “Monster” verse still to come. Supervised by Birdman, they’re surrounded by a gaggle of hyperactive oddballs, a motley crew that compensates for its lack of raw skill and starpower with versatility, sheer enthusiasm, and tiger-print pants. They post up in a mansion like it’s summer camp, playing foosball and squirting each other with water guns. Morale and camaraderie is high, and they sound as though they’re having a ton of fun.

Young Money, 2014: Lil Wayne, for all intents and purposes, is a fallen hero after a long string of unrecognizably weak projects. His duo of star underlings, however, have scaled the heights of both rap and pop and helped build powerful bridges between the two. Their supporting motley crew is still essentially the same supporting motley crew, if a bit thinned out and dramatically less excitable. Whereas 2009’s compilation We Are Young Money found Wayne and his cohort proudly kicking open doors and announcing their plans for world domination with jester-like sneers and grins, Rise of an Empire positions Young Money as a collective unsmilingly guarding its moneyed perch. “Long as we living right/ Then we alright/ Long as it’s high life/ Then we alright,” goes the bridge of “We Alright”, a lead single tinged with the paranoia of a pack of artists taking stock of exactly what they’ve still got in their collective grasp.

If Rise of an Empire is meant to read like some kind of State of the Union address, it paints Young Money as a fractured team that’s lost its compass. Minaj and Drake have fallen so far out of the orbit of Young Money’s pedestrian rings that their contributions almost feel like charity—Drake’s “Trophies” appears on the project months after he released the song for free on SoundCloud through his own OVO imprint. Nicki Minaj’s “Lookin’ Ass”, which she released along with a brutal, artfully shot black-and-white video last month, feels similarly detached from the rest of the compilation, and reads more like a promotion for her forthcoming studio album. Both tracks are highlights and sonic outliers on Rise of an Empire, and they stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the compilation, which—beyond the typical unevenness of any crew album—is largely joyless and anonymous.

The group’s youngest rapper, Lil Twist—who’s gained more of a reputation through his misadventures with Justin Bieber than anything else he’s done in recent years—boasts about hanging with Atlanta’s Rich Homie Quan and 2 Chainz rather than Lil Wayne on a song “Bang”. Yes, “Bang”, a hollow retooling of the song that put drill kingpin Chief Keef on the map. Even Tyga, who created a legitimate ripple in the rap pond a couple of years ago with “Rack City” and followed through with a decent album, sounds bored. The only figure with real energy is new Young Money signee Euro, a rapper with an unfortunate name but an imperious presence. But on his boastful coming-out statement “Induction Speech,” he sounds aware of his diminished surroundings: “I flew afternoon and made it by night/ I landed/ The flight was amazing/ I just stayed up and write,” he raps about his arrival, before confessing: “Chauffeur was waiting with a sign/ Except my name wasn’t right.” He goes on to crack about forgetting to text Mack Maine, Young Money’s effective director of operations, once he’s gotten in town.

Lil Wayne, who's allegedly gearing up to release the fifth installment of Tha Carter, sums up Rise of an Empire pretty tidily on "Moment": "Lately all I been doing is celebrating/ Don't even know why I'm celebrating." But he certainly has one reason to celebrate: Drake and Minaj, despite their evident drift from the day-to-day operations of Young Money, remain deeply loyal to he and Birdman. A DVD released along with the deluxe edition of Nicki Minaj’s last album pictures her alongside Wayne, presenting him with a brand new car for his birthday and faithfully referring to him as the President. She and Drake clearly remember the days when they were lucky to have Young Money. Rise of an Empire paints a different picture, one that emphasizes exactly how lucky Young Money is to still have them.