2/7/20
12:40 AM
*Flick, flick, inhale.*
At 24 tracks and spanning over an hour and fourteen minutes, Lil Wayne’s Funeral displays a full range of the rapper’s musical portfolio as we enter into his fourth decade in the industry. With his contractual and legal disputes out of the way, Tunechi returns from his previous project Tha Carter V, successfully breaking away from his slump and triumphantly returning to his rap potency, as one would expect from possibly one of the most impactful artists in their genre.
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Funeral being a continuation album of Wayne’s 2010 Rebirth series seems like a successful attempt of a struggle for relevancy— acclimating to today’s standard of music while maintaining classic elements of a legacy artist, the format and the overall energy of this album seems more similar to Tha Carter III than anything. Starting the record with a little bit of theatrical musing, the 24 track journey begins with an introduction in “Funeral”, seemingly laying down the tone of the album, but instantly changes the pace and gains momentum. “Mahogany”, “Mama Mia”, and the first few songs in the album strike hard impressions, landing preemptive jabs to the unsuspecting listener and catching them off guard; the energy of the first eight or nine songs are almost comparable to prime Weezy, and is paired with a few tracks that are more serious and somber towards the end of the album.
Topically, the album seems to be a decent balance between a man simply wilding out and coming back to realistic aspects of his life, where Lil Wayne finds a lot of his success stems from his platform— a hooligan turned millionaire just having fun, but remembering the days when he wasn’t so fortunate, Lil Wayne understands that he isn’t necessarily a political figure, and keeps his music far from related subjects, allowing his listeners to just enjoy the musicality of his work. Also expected of a Lil Wayne album, Funeral features the rap proficiency of a veteran in the game, packed with punchlines and technical execution, there’s also brief a Kobe Bryant tribute on track 8, which lasts 24 seconds. However, the album suffers from the length and some of its editorial issues; a few songs near the middle to latter sections of the record feel a little dragged out and muddy in contrast with the entirety of the work.
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Nonetheless, the cons of this album are definitely straightened out by its strengths— high energy bangers, some featured artists contributing a solid amount to the project (and some like Lil Twist and The Dream having their careers somewhat revived for a moment…), the commercially aimed songs are fool-proof in their purpose, the content is airtight, and the project, while lacking cohesion, can be identified as an album put out by Lil Wayne and is a positive output in comparison to earlier works like I Am Not a Human Being II or Free Weezy Album, with its most notable weakness stemming from a lack of editorial decisions and organizational components. Having said all this, in the continuation of Weezy F. Baby’s career, Funeral sets up for an upward trend for the rapper’s future and the possible quest to being the best rapper alive yet again.
Listen to the album below: