Kendrick Lamar and Lil Wayne form a perfect student-master duo on "Mona Lisa"



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Lil Wayne Road Tha Carter V has been long. The launch of the album was tainted by lawsuits, reconciliations and even more lawsuits before finally being released seven years after it went on sale. Although there is still no real momentum on the other album of 23 tracks (in this case, the long list of titles is justified, we waited long enough), the song most spoken so far was the much anticipated collaboration between Wayne and Kendrick Lamar on "Mona Lisa", produced by Onhel & Infamous. The piece originally released in 2014 by the famous "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, has little or no links and is apparently all BAR BARS BARS on the first skim, as both tell the story of a story. woman preparing her boyfriend to be robbed. But what is most interesting about the track is that it is a highly anticipated bookend for years of homage and tribute from Lamar to Weezy.

Lamar has always been explicit about his deep love for the rapper from New Orleans. Hell, Lamar's biggest single so far, "Humble," quotes Wayne when he says "Soprano C, we like to keep it on a high note", a comeback on Wayne's 2014 mixtape Sorry 4 waiting 2. This goes back to 2009 since Lamar, under the pseudonym K.Dot, released the tape C4, an ode of 18 tracks to Lil Wayne that opens, somehow embarrassingly, with an audio co-sign of the rapper himself. The pleasure of listening to the project, however, is to see a young Kendrick clearly cradling cadences and tones that will inevitably become the model of his agile couplets, vocally modulated now. For example, listen to Lamar's opening for "A Milli" where he imitates Lil Wayne's vocal frying and his particularly singular "Dawg" utterance. To illustrate how obsessive Lamar is, Childish Gambino to embody Wayne's ad-lib and cool aggressive tone on "Freaks and Geeks". Wayne is played as a raucous voice character, a very common mistake, while Lamar literally tries to reproduce syllables and letters in 1: 1 with Wayne. (Compare Lamar's love for onomatopoeia and his infamous DOOT DOOT DOOT "with Wayne, best shown in the iconic" Wowzers. ") So when the two finally met on Mike, he became" Buy the World "in 2014. .. a little disappointing.

There is nothing wrong with Buy The World, basically. It's a culmination with Future on an infectious vein about ambition and something adjacent to Scarface. Lil Wayne sounds good when he strikes twice: "Lord, help us Lord, my dog ​​is beautiful, Helen of Troy." Kendrick does the same, picks up the stream and enters a military-type snare pattern while searching in one of his many asides on the fact that his dick is not free. However, the song becomes unstable and it is clear that the verses have been reconstructed without anyone being aware of the presence of another on the track. In other words, it's not a real collaboration, without the interesting vocal acrobatics or chemistry that we expect from both. Perhaps this is why the song was only a minor hit and "Mona Lisa" was immediately celebrated. This, and "Mona Lisa" is like a snapshot of two very eccentric artists now equal in giving free rein.

Claimed to have been recorded in 2016, due to a reference to Kobe Bryant now retired (a player that the two rappers prefer too much to reference), "Mona Lisa" is not the rap clinic that Twitter's hype has done to be. Instead, it's a fun, but not rigorous listening experience, as both, especially Kendrick, have staged all of the animated vocal sounds and helped Lil Wayne to pioneer.

Wayne starts the song in a serious register before extending his usual pitched speaker tone until it reaches its breaking point while it rapps: "Shut up that shit and I scared her piss / piss and fuck her a gun at her grimace. He then brings her back to a sung voice that transports us again. It's a Wayne classic, reminiscent of his more frequent use of self-tuning in the 2010s. Lamar wears the song in much the same way, throwing us in and out of his natural register with (still once as a result of Wayne) autotune, but with the added addition of strings sections because, uh, it's Kendrick.

What probably attracts the most attention of the song is Lamar who takes a notch, becoming more and more like the partner in distress at the end of his mind, his voice being one of his best memories, sniffing and everything. (Will never be defeated after Future makes him ride in "King's Dead" using the same technique). Wayne has always played with his voice, taking an Alien-like presence in "Phone Home", but he mostly tends to stay in his vocal pocket. Wayne always sounds like Wayne, while the protégés like Young Thug and, in this case, Kendrick, took the lead, seeming totally different from themselves and simultaneously becoming new people. Wayne inadvertently inspired a form of role-playing that goes beyond faces and characters through words and voices.

The best thing about this song, however, is how the two verses could be closer to each other on any track. A great song has a climax that brings you to its conclusion to feel energized, drained or blossomed. Wayne is a master of this form and it's hard not to imagine Kendrick pulling him out of him too. Bring Lil Wayne on anything between 2005 and 2008 – the best example is his appearance on DJ Khaled's "We Takin Over" (you've probably heard the verse in your head). Lamar has also made a career as evidenced by the remix "Ridin Round Town", "Fucking Problem" with, again, another quote on his dick. ("Wowzers" still usurps that, he has a whole on Wayne's penis). Nevertheless, the "give and take" proposed on "Mona Lisa" is the outstanding point of brilliance of an album that delivers widely. This is not the confused passage of a torch from a rapper who has had the most commercial success to a former student and shows what he has learned to his tutor.

Also for controversy, Wayne had the best verse, Kendrick's just sounded colder.

Jabbari can not be found on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Noisey CA.

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