Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter VI, the next installment in his canonical series, will arrive on June 6. He was still finalizing the project when he played Rolling Stone a dozen or so songs in Atlanta for his new cover story. Wayne says that a key focus of the project was collaboration. “If there’s one thing about this album that’s different, it’s me approaching it like, ‘Man, what would I sound like on something with such and such,’” he tells us.
That mentality shines through in the array of artists he chose to collaborate with. Miley Cyrus and Bono are set to appear on Tha Carter VI. The U2 singer delivered the chorus on the reflective “These Are the Days,” which also features Wayne’s 15-year-old son Kameron. The song is from “2013 or 14,” Wayne says, recorded back when Kameron was a toddler.
Other features we heard include MGK, Elephant Man, Wayne’s Young Money artist Euro, and Wyclef Jean. The Fugee played a major role on the project, in fact, recording more than 30 tracks with Wayne during marathon recording sessions. “You going to probably do like eight songs [with Wyclef],” Wayne says. “He’s going to keep flipping what you did on one [song] and make a whole [new] song out of that shit.”
Wyclef also facilitated a song where Andrea Bocelli sang his famed “Ave Maria.” Wyclef flew to Italy to get Bocelli’s permission to sample the song, but when he told the tenor about Wayne’s childhood near-death experience, Bocelli was so moved that he decided to record his part himself. (Wyclef contends that the track will “stop time” upon release.) Along with their Carter VI work, Wayne and Wyclef are the nucleus of the Gumbo, an informal collective featuring New Orleans instrumentalists Jon Batiste, Ledisi, Trombone Shawty, and PJ Morton.
Overall, Tha Carter VI is a testament to Wayne’s malleable mic presence. He rhymes over different tempos and sonic moods, but sounds like himself on every song. Many of the tracks were untitled when Wayne played them for Rolling Stone. On one, he mimicked the cadence of Tupac’s “Hit Em Up” and Biggie’s “One More Chance” on two separate verses. Multiple tracks boasted Brooklyn drill production.
Another song we heard was a sunny ode to “cruisin’ through L.A.,” where he shouts out the late actor Matthew Perry — Wayne tells us that he didn’t know Perry, and the reference came after researching a name that fit the syllable space. Wayne even played some songs that his team later confirmed won’t be on the album. One Ye-produced track — which may not make the final cut — sounded like it was made during his Vultures sessions.
