Tha Carter Review

The circumstances made the album. The other stars had gone, the label needed a flagship, and he responded by rapping like someone who had finally been given the whole microphone. Go DJ is the single and it is a monster, one of the great Mannie Fresh beats and a hook built to be shouted. BM J.R. and This Is the Carter are where you first hear the thing that made him unavoidable a few years later, the willingness to chase a metaphor past the point of sense until it becomes funny and then becomes impressive.

The production is still the label house sound and it limits him, all bounce and synth with no shade in it. Twenty one tracks is at least six too many. But the confidence is new, the writing is trying, and everything the next four years delivered is legible in outline here. A real turning point that is also a slightly awkward record.