For a half-decade or more, he stood as hip-hop's tatted-up anomaly, the self-professed monster who ate rappers for breakfast while inhabiting a universe of his own creation. But in the time since Lil Wayne's late-2000s breakthrough, when platinum albums and a flood of mixtapes tipped him into cultural ubiquity, nothing has done as much to keep his legend alive as the music he didn't release. After years of creative, financial and legal struggles with his industry daddy Bryan "Baby" Williams, the rapper reached a settlement this summer freeing him from his longtime label Cash Money and clearing the way for him to release the album fans have awaited since 2011, when the last installment of his Carter series fell on ambivalent ears.
Today, after years of rumor and speculation, the case was closed in a message from the man himself. Tha Carter V is scheduled to arrive the night of Sept. 27 — Wayne's 36th birthday — along with a decade's worth of baggage.
In the annals of mythologized LPs, Tha Carter V falls somewhere between Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy (released in 2008 after nearly 15 years in development) and Dr. Dre's Detox (still just a rumor). Anticipation for it has birthed a cottage industry, from artists who piggybacked off the hype by daring to release albums with the same title — though Young Thug was legally forced to change his to Barter 6 — to rap's nerdy nemesis Martin Shkreli leaking tracks purportedly ripped from the real thing. Meanwhile, the industry changed, as did Wayne's status in it, from an artist ahead of his time to one so emulated that hip-hop's vanguard may well have outrun him by now.
And so, as you prepare for an album whose myth has lasted longer than some artists' entire careers, it's worth taking stock of where Lil Wayne has been all this time: In prison, in court, in the hospital, and in our ears — be it on smaller releases, as a guest on other artists' songs or as a clear source of inspiration. To help put Tha Carter V in proper context, here are five key factors in the recent life of the man who made it.
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