Lil Wayne - Funeral

Pitchfork 73

With his big legacy album Tha Carter V out of the way, Weezy is back in the booth and cruising, experimenting with an array of styles and a dizzying maze of wordplay.

The Guardian 60

(Young Money/Republic)

So much of what is now standard in hip-hop can be traced back to the intervention of New Orleans rapper and label boss Lil Wayne: trap eccentricity and Auto-Tune, face tattoos and sputtering quality levels. Following Eminem’s surprise drop last month, Wayne’s unheralded 13th studio album proves that the 37-year-old’s flow can still be fearsome, even if his edit function remains iffy.

Over these 24 tracks, Wayne throws everything at the Spotify algorithms: Trust Nobody bids nakedly at rock/rap crossover, playing off phoned-in couplets with a hook from Maroon 5’s Adam Levine. Even less enticing is Wayne singing to guitars by himself on Never Mind. Of all the many solid rapper hook-ups here, the late XXXTentacion features grimly on Get Outta My Head, rapping about poor mental health.