#437 - Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (2008)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

Released on June 10th 2008 by Cash Money and Universal Motown Record labels “The Carter III” is the sixth studio album by American, Southern rapper, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, and actor Lil Wayne and has over 25 producers and even more co-writers.

The son of a teenage mother and an absent father Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. grew up in the impoverished Hollygrove area of New Orleans, Louisiana.

He was a school prodigy by the age of 8 and was already writing rap songs and performing under the name “Gangsta D.”

His mother started dating and eventually married Ronald “Rabbit” McDonald who moved the family to East New Orleans. Although an admitted street hustler Rabbit was a strong father figure to young Dwayne.

By the time he was 11 he was leaving freestyle raps on the answering machine of local rap label Cash Money Records which got him mentored by cofounder and fellow rapper Birdman and included on some of their artists’ songs.

He became their youngest signed artist.

Although his success was on the horizon Dwayne’s mother objected to the lifestyle and criminal record of the Cash Money Records’ founder and the lyrical content of her son’s songs. In 1994 at the age of 12 that career turmoil caused Dwayne to either purposefully or accidentally shoot himself in the chest with his parents’ gun. Although he recovered this got Rabbit sent to jail for possession of an illegal handgun.

That same year under the name “Baby D” he released his first collaboration album with 14 year old rapper B.G. as The B.G.’z.

In 1996 after only a few months out of jail Rabbit was shot dead.

This was a turning point in Carter’s life and inspired the first of his many characteristic tattoos, “R.I.P. Rabbit.”

In 1997 with bills to pay and despite Carter being a 14 year old honors student, his mother urged him to drop out of school to focus on his career and he changed his rap name to “Lil Wayne.” That same year he and B.G. joined the rap group The Hot Boys with Turk and Juvenile and released their debut album, “Get It How U Live!” which was followed by the platinum selling, “Guerrilla Warfare” in 1999.

In 1999 Lil Wayne released his platinum-selling debut, “The Block is Hot”, followed by four more hit albums.

In the three years between his fifth studio album, “Tha Carter ll” and this follow up Lil Wayne appeared on huge hits by artists like Rick Ross, Akon, Fat Joe, Outkast, and DJ Khaled as well as releasing nine official mixtapes, a collaborative album with Birdman called, “Like Father, Like Son”, and an official E.P. release of songs recorded for this album that got leaked online.

By the time “Tha Carter lll” came out in 2008 Lil Wayne’s growling, weed-dried, flows and recreational cough syrup-drenched, auto-tuned, singing were already constantly on the radio and his boast of being the “best rapper alive” was hard to refute.

It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and not only sold over a million copies in its first week… which was the first album to do so after the introduction of downloading sites, but it also was the last physical rap album to do so.

To date it’s the 19th fastest selling album of all time.

And at the 2009 Grammy Awards it won the Best Rap Album, and contained the Best Rap Song and Best Rap Solo Performance.

Since then he has released six more studio albums, several more compilations, and many more mixtapes to various degrees of success.

However all twelve of his studio albums have been certified at least Gold.