(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Albums: #23: Lil’ Wayne – Da Drought 3 (2007)

Lil’ Wayne will never release an Illmatic, or a Reasonable Doubt, or a Ready To Die. He’s not the same type of rapper as Nas, Jay-z, or Biggie. He’s acts out of intuition. As a younger rapper hanging out with his big brothers in Cash Money, he was almost like a child on Thanksgiving sequestered to the kid’s table. When given bars In Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up”, he wasn’t even intellectual enough to provide us with a well-thought-out verse; all he did was recite “back it like it’s hot” over and over again. It’s no surprise that now that he’s an accomplished rapper and considered one of the best, his best set of work is an amazingly erratic mixtape, Da Drought 3.

Obviously, to make it in this Heroes of the Zeroes album list, Da Drought 3 mixtape has to be one fine-ass mixtape. Like most of his numerous fine-ass mixtapes, it specializes on rescuing the beats from other popular to near-popular hip-hop hits from the charts, spanning from Beyonce’s blaring “Upgrade U” to Swizz Beatz’s spastic “It’s Me Bitches” to Jibbs’ “King Kong”. His action-packed syllables and unpremeditated rhymes gives color to some of these previously monochrome flotsam and jetsam.

Lil’ Wayne is just unstoppable in this accumulation of rap masterpieces. For most of the tracks, the subject matter revolves around him trumpeting up his skills as a rapper, proclaiming that he belongs in the discussion as one of the greatest of all time. In “Put Some Keys On That”, he announces that he’s “out this world, [he] just bought a space shuttle” over Rich Boy’s stately “Throw Some D’s” beat. In “Boom”, he intimidates by saying he’s “on [whoever’s] heels like a shoehorn” on top of Lil’ Boosie’s “Zoom. Weezy felt like 24 bars in DJ Khaled’s “We Takin’ Over” wasn’t enough to express what he was feeling, so he made into a full song capable of taking over the world. As you can see, not only is Lil’ Wayne is an expert at building himself up, he is also a master of clever similes and wordplay.

The game of hip-hop is not any different than every other game out there in that you have to have confidence to succeed. And Da Drought 3 is a testament to his aplomb because it shows that he’s willing to give out tracks with this quality for free. The citizens point to his masterly 2008 album Tha Carter III as his official coming-out party but this stockpile of free shit is where he gained a ton of hip-hop aficionado’s respect. It’s unfair that the public points at the time-honored album format of Tha Carter III—which was, to be fair, successful enough—to measure his worth because traditionally, that’s the way great rappers are evaluated. Lil’ Wayne is best when his intent isn’t calculated. Da Drought 3’s threw away the rulebook and proved that hip-hop’s triumph is based on skill and sound alone.