The past few weeks I have chosen to live and explore the album of "The Carter 3" by Lil Wayne. I chose this album not because it is his best (personally enjoy the Carter 2 most) but because it is his album which received the most attention, so I want to look a little deeper into the album's origins and importance in hip-hop. Overall the purpose of this album is an attempt by Lil Wayne to show that he has risen to the top in today's conversation of best rappers. This album came out right after a string of great Lil Wayne mix-tapes that lasted about 2 years. There really is no debate on the commercial success of this album, with this being the most successful rap album in terms of sales since 2008. However I will attempt to answer whether this was just a very successful mainstream rap album or whether there is some meaning behind it. I will explore the album and then give a track by track breakdown on the most meaningful records. Lil Wayne grew up in Hollygrove, New Orleans a very poor neighborhood. He represents his home city as much as anyone else if not more, it is very important to him and references can be found in most of his material. In "The Carter" documentary Wayne refers to Hollygrove as "what you may call a home/village, it's my everything but you don't want to go there". He has always represented the South featuring with many other quality southern rappers like T.I., Outkast, Young Jeezy and many more. However oddly his rapping style at times can seem very east coast with the rhyming and metaphors. His hometown is definitely present on the album, both New Orleans and Hollygrove are mentioned on the introduction track, where he grew up. Perhaps his most emotional song on the album, "Tie My Hands" is entirely about the downfall of his city. On the album he talks about wanting to make it out of the slums, this ghetto neighborhood but at the same time he has always been one of the few to represent New Orleans, and shows pride in doing so. The artwork on this album contains a picture of himself as a baby, similar to "Illmatic" and "Ready to Die". It seems Wayne chose to copy this cover art style simply because he sees it as one his career defining albums. The best word to describe the beats on this album would be soulful. There are a few beats that are pop, a few quick paced but the rest are mainly soul, a nice change of pace from all the hard beats. I think that these type of beats were chosen because Wayne wanted his lyrics to feel sincere, truthful and clear. The beat selection had to do with both the artist and producer, for example there were 2 Kanye beats that were his typical "soulful" style. However when Wayne wanted to rap fast he had quick tempo beats. He had some very creative subject matter that required funky beats to go with it as well. In this album Lil Wayne is mainly reflecting on all the success that has led him to this point in his career, being one of the most successful rappers. He is seen bragging in tracks such as; 3 Peat, Mr. Carter, A Milli and Got Money. I believe that he has earned the right to brag because he came up from a struggle when he was young. As quoted from "The Carter" documentary, his father figure Birdman stated "I wanted to give him hope, I know what it was like out on the streets and so I wanted to make the studio his streets, we were in the studio all day". Some meaningful political content can be found on the album which I will discuss later on tracks such as "Tie My Hands" and "Dontgetit". Lil Wayne remains on point with his lyrics, he keeps a tight original flow and is able to tie words together in a very creative manner, giving his lyrics multiple hidden meanings. Aside from the album's message that Wayne has now made it to the top as one of the greatest rappers, I believe the album serves for one other critical purpose. The power of this album, the weirdest part, is that it was extremely successful yet the content is not characteristic of mainstream rap. There is some very strange and innovative content that is typically not found on the radio. Songs like Mrs Officer (wanting to screw a female police officer), Phone Home (basically stating he is an alien) and Dr Carter (portraying the role of a doctor) are material you would never expect to find o