With Tha Carter V still firmly within the clutches of Birdman's grubby fingers, Lil Wayne made the wise decision to begin working on another album earlier this year. Dubbed the Free Weezy Album, we're not entirely sure if the title refers to a lack of a price tag, or is simply a cry to "free Weezy" from Cash Money Records, but whatever the case, we now know it's coming on July 4th.
Other than that tidbit of info and the lead single, "Glory," we're still in the dark about the rest of FWA. Will it be akin to a classic Weezy mixtape, mostly made up of freestyles? Will it be a TIDAL exclusive? Will Wayne still be able to collab with Cash Money/Young Money artists without running the risk of contract breaches?
Though we can't unpack any of those mysteries right now, we can dream about our ideal version of FWA, as we did for Childish Gambino's impending album earlier this week.
Released via Young Money/Universal, not Cash Money
With all of the drama between Lil Wayne and Birdman going down in the past six months, it's pretty clear that Baby and his Cash Money label are the ones impeding the release of Carter V, as Weezy has seemed eager to release it from the jump. For all we know, he's still technically on Cash Money, but an enterprising individual on Twitter recently noticed that "Glory" (a TIDAL exclusive) is listed as a Young Money/Universal release. Wayne's page on the streaming service used to list him as strictly a Cash Money artist, so this could be indicative of a label switch.
As Weezy tells it, Cash Money's stifling his creativity and not allowing him to have full control over his work, so if the Free Weezy Album drops without the label's name attached to it, we'll consider it a success.
Less auto-tune
On nearly every Sorry 4 The Wait 2 track, Wayne had the auto-tune turned way, way up, which isn't a new strategy for him, but we could do with at least a little less. On "Glory," he forwent the pitch-correction technology, and sounded better for it, so maybe that's a sign of things to come on the rest of the album. He was back to his punchline-heavy ways, and while not all of them connected, it was a much-welcomed change from the high-pitched yawp he was using on S4W2, which honestly sounded quite a bit like the vocal stylings of his biggest fan/rival Young Thug.
Maybe comparisons to Thugger spurred Weezy's return to unaltered vocals, maybe he heard fans' cries for "old Weezy," maybe he just wanted a change of pace. But we could definitely do with more intermittent auto-tune on FWA.
Mannie Fresh beats
We already know that Mannie is on the Carter V tracklist, but what about FWA? What with his falling out with Birdman, his placement on CV seemed pretty unlikely, but if Wayne's new album truly isn't tied to Cash Money at all, he should have the green light to appear on there.
Fresh's time at Cash Money unfortunately ended before Wayne's peak, the Carter II & III era, but as fans of the original Carter know, him and Wayne make a pretty amazing team. It might be hard to mesh his bounce sound with the rest of the project, but "Glory" has a pretty old-school sound, so there's still hope.
No freestyles
I have nothing against a good Weezy freestyle, but because his last two official releases (S4W2 and Dedication 5) are mostly comprised of other peoples' beats, I'd really prefer an entire collection of Wayne originals. If that ended up happening, it'd be Weezy's first wholly original project since 2013's I Am Not A Human Being II.
The Free Weezy Album could indeed be free, but save the freestyles for things actually labelled "mixtapes."
A Jay Z guest verse
How excited would you be to hear a sequel to "Mr. Carter"? It might have seemed unlikely to happen at one point, but now that Wayne's a TIDAL co-owner (and still calls Hova his "idol"), a joint track seems like much more of a possibility. No guests have been announced for The Free Weezy Album at this time, so Wayne could be aiming for a solo-heavy record, but if he's not, we'd bet that Jay was close to the top of his features wish list.
