Tha Carter III Review

The strange thing about the biggest rap album of its decade is how odd it is. A Milli is essentially a stuttering vocal sample and a bassline, and he freestyles over it for four minutes with no chorus at all. Phone Home is science fiction nonsense. Dr. Carter is a full concept song about performing surgery on dead rappers, and it works. Around those he keeps the hits properly enormous, Lollipop turning a robot voice into the sound of that entire summer, Mrs. Officer being far filthier than radio noticed.

The croak that the syrup had done to his voice becomes the record's main texture, and Kanye and Bangladesh and the rest give him beats with enough space to fill. It sags in the last third and Tie My Hands is a well meant misfire. For about forty minutes this is the most entertaining rap album of its era by a distance.