WEEZYWATCH!

Pam Anderson wishes she got as much attention is Wayne is right now.



Well, the day has finally came. Lil Wayne's highly-anticipated and over-hyped The Carter 3 album is finally coming out. Hopefully this means the end of the 24/7 coverage we've been seeing on this guy. I understand you got to give the people what they want but GOT DAMN! We need to find some more people, surely the entire world doesn't want to ONLY read and hear about Lil' Wayne.

I myself was never a big Lil Wayne fan, Juvi and B.G. were my favorite Hot Boyz (pause?), but I always respected Wayne's flow, especially when he used to have to stretch his vocab as a youngin' because he couldn't curse.

My younger brother would always try to put me up on his stuff during the Squad Up days, and I'll admit, some of that stuff was dope, hell, it was better than most if not all of his album material. But I was accustomed to listening to what I was already bumping around that time, so Weezy wasn't really a listening priority for me.

I enjoyed most of the The Carter, it was dope. But I think what made me really start paying attention to dude was that first Dedication. I really must have liked that CD because I remember where I bought it (R.I.P VIBE's in Downtown Decatur) and I remember listening to it on repeat that following weekend down in Miami when me and some friends (whaddup D.K. and L.L.) painted the town red.

Since then though, I only paid attention to Wayne just to stay aware. I can't say that I've just throughly enjoyed everything he's put out since then. Mainly because its been on overload. Anyone who knows me will tell you, I usually don't like shit that comes in abundance. I mean, I think I might have been the only nigga in my crew to not go goo-goo gaa-gaa over J.Lo when she was the hot shit. Yeah, I was feeling her when she would pop up every once in a while, but when I started seeing her more than the McDonald's arches, I kinda lost interest. Same goes for Beyonce.

Don't get me wrong, I know that Wayne still drops some hot shit, but I think most of the music listeners out there like dude only because he's always there. Weezy's music is like celery at a BBQ. You don't go to the BBQ just to eat celery, but 9 times out of 10, that's what's gonna be there the most. So, when nigga eat up all the chicken and ribs, you just start eating the celery because its there for you. Weezy's music is always there, so niggas eat it up, even if they don't really want to.

That said, I think folk love Wayne so much because really (correct me if I'm wrong), him and 50 Cent are two rappers that blew up around the same time that the internet really started having an impact on the record business. I mean yeah, Outkast, Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem, Nelly, etc where all there too, but they was there a little bit before the internet put a chokehold on the game. So folks was still accustomed to having to buy what those guys put out.

An artist like Wayne came at a time when folks was starting to find random shit on Napster, Morpheus, Limewire and obscure music forums. Plus, most of his fanbase is either his age or younger, meaning they are that "information overload" generation I've talked about in the past. Just like their favorite rapper who once said "feed me rappers or feed me beats"...all they know is CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME...whether its media, food or "nigga technology" like ringtones and shit.

Another reason I think the world is on WeezyWatch is because dude is the first rapper we've seen grow from being a talented child into an adult superstar. His fans feel like they've been a part of his entire life, thus, they feel like they actually know him. Most child rappers fall off by the time they become adults. That or they just get lame as hell. So Wayne is a rarity in that regard.

Can you name the last entertainer we saw grow from a child prodigy into an adult phenomenon?



Which brings me to my next thought. Do you think Wayne is gonna end up like Mike? I'm not asking if you think he gonna start hanging out with monkeys and old women and touching on little boys. But I am saying that Wayne's erratic behavior through interviews and what we read about in the news is kinda similar to how Mike manages to keep himself in the public eye.

Think about it, through the course of his career our conversations about Mike have changed drastically. I went from "yo, you heard that new Michael Jackson song? You seen the video?" to "yo...what the fuck is up with Mike, that nigga is trippin' dawg."

The same shit is going on with Wayne. Niggas used to be like "man, you heard that new Weezy? No, not that one. No not that one. No not that one. Yeah, that one." to "man, what the fuck do this nigga be talking about? The fuck is this nigga doing? He need to lay off that shit. That nigga is crazy."

But yeah, thats about it. I don't write about Lil Wayne often. I actually make a concious effort not to. Its enough other folks writing about him that one more voice really isn't needed. But I just had to go ahead and get this out of my system. Anyways, enjoy the rest of Weezy day/week/month/season/year. Because even though the album is finally here, something tells me WeezyWatch is about to kick into overdrive, which I really didn't think was possible.