Released last week in theaters and on DVD was the documentary "The Carter," which chronicles New Orleans-born rapper Lil Wayne (née Dwayne Michael Carter) during the release of his 2008 multi-platinum record, Tha Carter III. The film has been the subject of a lawsuit after Carter went into the project giving his consent but later revoked it. Likely, Carter objected to the light in which he is portrayed as an egotistical drug-addict. Though Carter did not grant the film makers, QD3, a proper sit-down interview, the rap star's story is effectively told through sufficient footage of other interviews, live performances, studio sessions and an analysis of his music and lyrics.
Here's the trailer:
So, what is garnered from "The Carter"? What does this documentary tell us about Dwayne Michael Carter? Perhaps for some of us who have followed Carter's career, not much more than we already suspected aside from offering first-hand witness to how ridiculous superstardom can be. Meanwhile for newbies, "The Carter" offers fairly personal insight into the life of the 25-year-old "Best Rapper Alive," as he is often referred to as.
Indeed, Lil Wayne is a provocative subject. He seemingly lives off a mix of the cough syrup and soda pop concoction simply known as "syrup" or "sizzurp" and blunts. Blunt after blunt after blunt. He at one point cuts off an interview with a foreign journalist because he does not want to discuss his relation to the history of New Orleans music. He speaks about getting "raped" with his fist blow job at the age of 11 by some woman in a room filled with his Cash Money Millionaire brethren, and tells 15-year-old Lil Twist he should definitely be fucking at his age because, after all he too, is Cash Money.
If Carter were President he says he would... change the price of gas, put cocaine back in coca cola, legalize all banned substances from sports, make prostitution legal in five more states, legalize gambling everywhere, legalize marijuana first and second, and eliminate child support and prenuptial agreements.
To be sure, this man is not a first-rate role model. But to his and his mentor Bryan "Baby" Williams' credit, they are not on the streets gang banging as the film suggests could have been an alternative outcome.
Wayne seems to be forever on the road, working, recording, performing, and because of that is an absent father to his 10-year-old daughter, Reginae. One of side-effects of fame and success, I suppose. When asked what the best present her father ever gave her, Reginae quickly answers with forlorn eyes, "Oh, him being here. that's the best present."
Lil Wayne is rumored to have recorded upwards of 1,000 songs in 2008, edging towards an average of three per day. He doesn't write lyrics down because he says he doesn't want to be like Curt Kobain and have his journals sold after his death, but I think the truth is that he is simply not that kind of artist. He is not a poet, at least not in any conventional sense. He watches ESPN 24 hours a day and records whatever comes to mind in a stream of consciousness, which he edits together once the words have entered the ether. He is entirely convinced of his own genius so that anything that might leave his mouth might as well be brilliant. "I'm creating the face of music, period," Carter says at one point in the film. "I want every artist to feel like they gotta do way more than they do."
Most the time Carter's brilliant lyrics center around sex, money and self-promotion, the former of which he claims he doesn't even have time for. And as a result many of his lyrics to his countless songs come off as superficial and so one must ask, Is this really the work of a genius?
But that point is moot because in Carter's world his genius has already been established with millions of records sold and millions of dollars earned to certify it. "No one's thoughts matter to me at all," he says in "The Carter." He is untouchable.
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