Tha Fix Before Tha VI

For decades Wayne’s made a habit of dropping mixtapes to tide over fans while they wait for the latest installment of his beloved *Tha Carter* album series, from his free *Da Drought* downloads throughout the 2000s to the *Sorry 4 the Wait* tapes in the 2010s. There’s no telling when he might drop the long-awaited *Tha Carter VI*, but 10 new tracks from the Louisiana legend are a small consolation in the meantime. With Wayne the highs are always high (like “Kat Food,” an interpolation of Missy Elliott’s “Work It” that finds dozens of new ways to express his favorite subject, the joy of cunnilingus), and the not-so-highs are fascinating: His “Tity Boi” bars rise and fall like arpeggios before exploding into an absurdly horny EDM rager. Then again, it sometimes takes a few years for the rest of us to catch up to Wayne’s vision: People thought he was crazy for *Rebirth*, his 2010 rock record that predicted the emo-rap renaissance to come. Following guest spots on pop-punk blockbusters from the likes of Machine Gun Kelly in recent years, the rap-rock hybrid “Tuxedo” has Wayne sounding vindicated, dropping trademark zingers like “Don’t know who these rappers are, that shit sound like salad bars.”

As much as some of Lil Wayne's most important material has appeared on the various installments of his long-running Tha Carter series, in his prime, the mixtapes that surrounded the various chapters of that series could be just as substantial.