Lil’ Wayne is riding high on a resurgence in popularity right now. After seemingly fading out of the minds of hip hop heads, Wayne has begun his ascent back into the rap game, with the release of a new track, Glory, released exclusively on Jay-Z’s Tidal streaming service. Although there would seemingly be less excitement regarding a Weezy track as of late, 2015 has provided several of his best lyrical performances in recent memory, from his features on Tyler the Creator’s Smuckers and A$AP Rocky’s M’$, to Big Sean’s Deep. Wayne’s dispute with former label mate Young Thug has also kept the former hottest rapper in the game on our radars, as he has engaged in a public feud over the rights to the use of “Tha Carter” in album titles, subsequently leading to Young Thug’s mixtape release of Barter 6.
It would seem that Lil’ Wayne is attempting to fulfil his quota of Tidal exclusives, in an attempt to generate more publicity for the much maligned streaming service. Sadly however, a musical “exclusive” these days is only really exclusive until someone can be bothered to rip the audio to another website, so give or take five minutes? Glory is a hard-hitting, in your face track that does not disappoint, and takes us back about five years ago when Lil’ Wayne was indisputably the hottest rapper in the game. It feels as though for the first time in years, Wayne is actually trying again, and is not simply phoning in features and delivering lazy lyrical performances. The beat is loud, booming and pulls no punches. It would also be amiss for Wayne to not deliver some of his trademark puns, and boy does he deliver. “Holy shit/ I’m God’s manure”. If lyrics like that do not highlight Wayne’s resurgence, nothing will.
Check out Glory in its full glory here.