People bitching about the lack of rap on the record apparently missed “Ground Zero,” which easily ranks among his finest material. “Rebirth” has moments of genius, and those moments almost always coincide with coupling fiery emotion with punk’s propulsive rhythm.
The answer strangely seems to be punk rock. In doing so it sets the theme for “Rebirth.” What happens when someone only knows enough about rock and roll to reproduce the basics of song structure and fills in the blanks with what they do know? “Prom Queen” takes the basics of one of rock and roll’s most treasured song types, the ballad, and filters it through the crushing drum and bass groove of hip-hop. Wayne’s rapping isn’t as detailed as his mixtape work, perhaps in fear of overshadowing the music he had a hand in composing, but he’s still adept at playing both paranoid and playboy in his Auto-Tuned raps. The album’s lead off track “American Star” could have easily fit anywhere on the “Carter III” even with its heavy blues guitar foundation.
Considering it’s the product of an evolutionary soup of cough syrup, what has to be literally tons of weed at this point, ego, and a creative desire to no longer be just the greatest rapper alive who can honestly say they’re surprised it’s uneven? “Rebirth” isn’t a perfect record by any means. The only connection between “Rebirth” and nu-metal is that each feature lots of power chords, but so does pretty much every major flavor of rock so this comparison is akin to saying Common and the Geto Boys sound the same because they both use programmed drums. It isn’t fucking nu-metal, and if you never listened to nu-metal beyond the Limp Bizkit songs you heard on the radio please kindly stop making this connection. So first off let’s clear the air, “Rebirth” is a rock album that features a heavy hip-hop influence, but it isn’t a rap rock album. Apparently hip-hop now has its own version of Jawbreaker’s “Dear You.” But that criticism has become part of the narrative of “Rebirth”s story, and I worry such laziness will inadvertently condemn “Rebirth” to being written off unfairly until kids finally discover it on their own years from now in bargain bins. Any article that says Lil Wayne’s “Rebirth” sounds anything like Linkin Park is written by someone who has never actually listened to a Linkin Park album. This has lead to reviewers for respected publications, publications I look up to as a writer, comparing “Rebirth” to bands like Linkin Park. When people don’t know what to do with a record they pretend they do and, more damagingly, they pretend based on their preconceived notions of what they think they’re hearing. The roar of people who didn’t know what to do with Lil Wayne’s self professed rock album started when singles like “Hot Revolver” and “Prom Queen” leaked, but didn’t truly reach their apex until the record landed on the internet in December. “But John-Michael” you ask yourself, “what does that have to do with Lil Wayne’s “Rebirth”?” Honestly? Everything.
When a band reaches a certain level of popularity they become so culturally known that their very name has connotations attached to it that allow music writers to lazily use that name to symbolize their perceptions of the band, even if those preconceptions are absolutely bullshit.
That we don’t have preconceived ideas about a record before we even listen to it, or that the comparisons we make between one artist and another are based on actually listening to those artists ourselves. One problem the music public faces when reading reviews is the absolutely insane assumption that the writer whose critique you’re reading isn’t a liar.
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