This review was supposed to be posted on a website, but never quite made it due to release dates. However, it’s still here for all you Weezy fans. If you get bored in the 9 days until the release of Wayne’s Carter IV, take a stop here and read my review for a second. Pass it along!!

Wayne is back at it again with his latest mixtape installment “Sorry 4 The Wait”. While no apology was needed, it was quite nice. There aren’t many people, rappers included, that would take the time to say sorry. If there is a delay, it is ordinarily accepted and the fans have to deal with the wait. However, as Wayne has proved in the past, he is not your ordinary rapper or person. While we may not all be personal friends with Wayne, he treats his fans with a respect you don’t find with many musicians.

So when fans were shocked and sickened by the fact that Wayne’s Carter IV, possibly his highest anticipated album to date, was pushed back another three months, they were naturally devastated. With no sorry or press release from Young Money explaining the reason behind it, a lot of people were thrown off. Many people proclaimed “I am not buying the Carter IV now” and perhaps they still won’t. However, in such sporadic, Lil Wayne fashion, a week later we got a tweet from Lil B saying that Weezy was releasing a mixtape entitled “Sorry 4 The Wait”. Instantly fans across the world took to Twitter, their phones and perhaps any communication device they could get their hands on to proclaim, “THANK GOD, it’s about damn time and I forgive you.”

In a wait that has only been 2 years since “No Ceilings”, but in music years might as well be a decade, Wayne finally hit us with “Sorry 4 The Wait”. While the mixtape isn’t reminiscent of his hot fire spitting days from mixtapes such as “Da Drought 3”, “Dedication 2” or “W. Carter Collection”, we still got a mixtape showcasing why Weezy is still Weezy. It was more like a “thank you” from Wayne, for staying patient. Just an apology. Just a little something to hold us fans over until his mammoth Carter IV finally hits shelves.

For all the big hip hop heads out there, perhaps this wasn’t the mixtape you were hoping for. Perhaps you were looking for the flow from his “Carter II” days or “Dedication 3”. However for the Wayne fans that are saying “I can’t believe I’m actually hearing Wayne on a mixtape in 2011”, it’s everything we could have asked for and more. His flow is still tight and he still possesses the imagery and creativeness in his words that made us all fans in the beginning.

The revelation that Lil Wayne is officially back, can be heard on the first song off the mixtape entitled appropriately, “Tunechi’s Back”. This song is a cover to the current Maybach Music Group hit “Tupac’s Back”. While Meek Mill killed his verse on the original version, Wayne takes his turn as well as he goes in on this Tupac dedicated song.

Immediately we are hit with the slight turn of phrase Wayne typically puts on his mixtapes. He goes “Tunechi’s back, Tunechi’s back” instead of the original “Tupac’s Back, Tupac’s Back”, setting the humor tone for the rest of the mixtape. He also throws a nice line in the middle of the song where he goes, “I got a virgin, I call her Madonna…I aint trippin her head is a monster.” This being a reference, obviosuly, to Madonna’s 80’s smash hit “Like A Virgin”. This song wasn’t meant to compete with YMCMB affiliate MMG. It was just a funny turn of phrase Wayne put on the title to give his fans something to bump to.

The next two songs carry along the mixtape nicely. We aren’t yet at the meat of the mixtape, but Wayne hits us with his usual three minute verse technique on the song “Rollin”. The first line of the song starts out funny as he begins with “Big ass chopper, call that bitch Beyonce.” The rest of the song continues with Wayne ripping off one liners, one after the other. The next song “Throwed Off” features Wayne’s right hand man when it comes to his mixtapes, Gudda Gudda. He delivers his usual verse and holds down the song well. Wayne does as well and hits us with a couple good lines such as “Big B’s Boston Bruins” and “I sware your honor, I aint a dealer I’m a user”.

Wayne changes it up on the next song “Gucci Gucci”, a great remix of Kreayshawn’s song of the same name. It’s a nice change of pace from the previous three songs, which had similar beats. This beat breathes a nice rush of cool air over the mixtape and gives it some life. Wayne shows us his ability to remix a song as he changes up the chorus to “Tunechi Tunechi tote a tooly, fuck around and pop ya…My homies got that white girl, call it Lady Gaga.” Wayne then joins Drake in “Marvin’s Room” as he delivers a couple bars directed at the ladies as he goes “She waitin for that Carter, yea 69…She so versatile, She take it every way but personal”. He continues carving his way through “Marvin’s Room”, carrying along nicely with the slow beat, adding in some jokes and thoughts along the way.

Wayne then chooses to go in on Miguel’s song “Sure Thing”. This is perhaps one of the best songs off of the mixtape as Wayne goes in on the beat like it was made for him. He, as he usually does, seems to take the song to a different level. As soon as the beat drops after the intro, he slips into the song like a fitted suit. He hits the upbeat perfectly and flows well over the guitar chord looped in the background. Along with the floating synth that accompanies the beat, Wayne is all over this song from top to bottom. It really is one of the songs that should be heard from this mixtape. He ends it with “Tez pushed the album back, sorry for the wait” and it really couldn’t have ended any better.
“Sorry 4 The Wait” continues with songs like “Grove St. Party” featuring Lil B and there is also the song “Inkredible”. These two are just a bit of an interlude between the heavier tracks at the end of the album. Wayne goes in on “Racks”, “Hands Up” and an aspiring remix to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”. “Racks” shows Wayne doing his usual, making rapping look easy and straight up mashing. He says “Redbone, Caramel…Come to my room it’s a fairy tale”. A shout out to, well, you probably know who they are. Wayne also does his thing on “Hands Up” where he is basically just celebrating the good things around him. Only half of the song is a verse as Wayne takes the time in the second half of the song to give some thanks to everyone. It is just a feel good song.
The last two tracks on the mixtape are something to be admired. Although the track titled appropriately “IDK” isn’t a rap, Wayne does something a bit different. It’s not really clear as to what label the song falls under, but it is still something to be heard. In the background is Majer Lazer’s “Pon de Floor” (a whole song and video unto itself). Wayne is not rapping in the typical sense, but he still flows with the beat, giving shout outs, talking about different subjects off the top of his head and creating sounds along the way that go with the beat. There isn’t a story, but it is more of him just rattling off thoughts and chillin in the booth with a crazy beat in the background. It is more of “twap” if anything. Some people might have seen Wayne using this technique with his “Garage Band”, a.k.a. Wayne and his Young Money bandmates chillen at his house bangin on any instrument they could find.
The last song on the mixtape is the remix to Adele’s “Rollin in the Deep”. There isn’t much to say about this song, other than the fact Wayne did an amazing job. He completely transformed Adele’s song into it’s rap alter ego. Wayne breaks it down with just the acoustic guitar in the background accompanied by the bass drum. He shows us what can be done when you have talent, a good ear and most importantly, have fun making music. He has some great lines in there such as “She pop X, I smoke O’s tic tac toe” and “Weezy go hard, Cialis”. The song also has a good flow as it starts out slow, then explodes in the middle. Towards the end, instead of bringing it back to the chorus, Wayne takes us into a bit of a two-step rap where you can almost picture him in a blues lounge, with a bass cello, rapping on stage. It really is an amazing feat when you look at what that song was and what he turned it into.
Overall, “Sorry 4 The Wait” was a great mixtape. Fans of Wayne won’t be disappointed by his latest effort. Unfortunately, it probably won’t go down as the mixtape we will remember Wayne by, but it will always be remembered as one of his classics. The mixtape was meant to keep us busy for another month or so until August and it did exactly that. It does have it’s moments of greatness and it proves how dedicated Lil Wayne is to his craft and music. He could have easily released a mixtape of previously unreleased songs, or have done nothing at all. Instead Wayne took it upon himself to record 12 new songs. Somehow in the midst of recording features and finishing up the Carter IV, he found time to drop a couple extra lines for everybody. We can sort of tell Wayne could have done more on the mixtape, but it was definitely enough to keep us satisfied and laughing until the real deal, Tha Carter IV, sets the rap world on fire at the end of August.