Tha Block Is Hot is the debut major label studio album by American rapper Lil Wayne. It was released on November 2, 1999, by Universal Records and Baby's Cash Money Records.[8] Recording sessions took place from 1997 to 1999, with the executive production from Bryan "Baby" Williams and Ronald "Slim" Williams, all of these tracks were produced by Mannie Fresh himself. Prior to release, the album was known by the title I Ride At Night.[9]
Lil Wayne Tha Block Is Hot Album Zip
Tha Block Is Hot debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 229,500 copies in its first week.[10][11] In its second week, the album dropped to number ten on the chart, selling an additional 117,000 copies.[12][13] On December 10, 1999, the album became certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over a million copies.[14] As of June 2012, the album has sold 1.4 million copies in the United States.[15]
Granted, Leno won't make "Shooter" Wayne's "song" (it will be though), and we definitely can't call Tha Carter II his coming-of-age album or something equally corny-- people blew that line on the one before. Fact is, Wayne's still young, and he loves that he can get away with shit-- literally. Firmly keeping a foot in the sandbox, Wayne dabbles scatological throughout ("Dear Mr. Toilet/ I'm the shit"), sometimes even elaborately so ("You niggas small bubbles, I burp you/ I'll spit you out and have your girls slurp you"). Total energy thing, his verses still lack polish and a good edit (e.g. so many goddamn shark jokes), and his skits and "personality raps" (cf. "Grown Man") spell him out too bluntly, too vainly. And yet, there's "Shooter", or "Receipt", or "Get Over": "Standin' on stage in front of thousands/ Don't amount to me not having my father." Lines like this fall outta nowhere, jaw-droppers aplenty-- but "don't forget the baby".
"I'm a self-made millionaire, fuck the public," he says on "Money On My Mind." To an extent, he's right. This is Wayne's show, the album's only guests being Kurupt and Birdman and some r&b; b-girls. Not to say he's ungrateful; it's just that establishing his autonomy, his don't give a fuck, is infinitely more important. Lead track "Tha Mobb" really lays the audience/methodology/goals stuff on thick: For five minutes, no chorus, sad piano, he does it for "the gangstas and the bitches, the hustlers and the hos." Crossover? "Whatever." Mainstream? "No!" He refuses to be a Big artist, precisely so he can be a big Artist.
Shirking responsibility then? Katrina happened after most these tracks were cut, so let's not be assholes. He worked in a few rhymes after the fact, very simple stuff like "gotta get the hood back after Katrina" on "Feel Me". But the line that follows is more telling: "Weezy F. Baby, the 'F' is for 'FEMA'." FEMA, that lark, and so goes his point: For relief, he's not responsible. While Wayne hasn't made Tha Carter II a "Katrina album" in the obvious respect (cf. that horrendous "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" song rock critics like because they "get" it), he's given New Orleans something much greater-- someone, one of their own, to believe in. "If I talk it I walk it like Herschel," he says on "Mo Fire", his syllables out his mouth like smoke rings-- he means sex, other things too.
In 2005, Lil Wayne dropped his fifth studio album, Tha Carter II. Filled with a variety of producers, the second installment is a 180 from the usual Mannie Fresh production that was granted the first time around.
Mannie Fresh remained on the Cash Money Records roster from 1998 to 2005. Ironically, this is the very same year Weezy dropped his album. Due to the fall out, Wayne redid the album with outside producers, making arguably his best body of work.
When Juvenile left the label, Wayne - or 'Birdman Jr.' as he was calling himself - showed his allegiance to his CEO by releasing an album with a title much hotter than Juvie's breakthrough effort. While Fresh was primarily responsible for launching his career, Wayne was now much closer to Fresh's fellow Big Tymer and Cash Money CEO Birdman. His second album, Lights Out (2000), failed to match the success of its predecessor but it did go gold, and with an appearance on the Big Tymers' hit single '#1 Stunna,' his audience was certainly growing. It went double platinum but the rapper was still unknown to Middle America, since his hardcore rhymes and the rough Cash Money sound had not yet crossed over. Wayne would launch his solo career a year later with the album Tha Block Is Hot, featuring the hit single title track. In 1998, Lil Wayne would appear on Juvenile's hit single 'Back That Thing Up,' or 'Back That Azz Up' as it appeared on Juvie's album 400 Degreez. Mainstream distribution would help that year's Hot Boys album Guerrilla Warfare to reach the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Two years later, Cash Money would sign a distribution deal with the major label Universal.
He joined B.G., Juvenile, and Young Turk for another Fresh project, the teen hardcore rap group the Hot Boys, who released their debut album, Get It How U Live!, in 1997. release.That same year, he officially took the moniker Lil Wayne, dropping the 'D' from his first name in order to separate himself from an absent father. The 1997 album Chopper City was supposed to be the follow-up, but when Wayne accidentally shot himself in the chest with a 9mm, it became a solo B.G. Although only B.G.'s name appeared on the cover, the 1995 album True Story has since been accepted as the B.G.'z debut album both by fans and the Cash Money label. A year later, in-house producer Mannie Fresh partnered him with the 14-year-old B.G. Combining a strong work ethic with aggressive self-promotion, the 11-year-old convinced the Cash Money label to take him on, even if it was just for odd jobs around the office. He found music was the best way to express himself, and after taking the name Gangsta D he began writing rhymes. and raised in the infamous New Orleans neighborhood of Hollygrove, he was a straight-A student but never felt his true intelligence was expressed through any kind of report card. A game-changing artist and celebrity, Lil Wayne began his career as a near-novelty - a preteen delivering hardcore hip-hop - but through years of maturation and reinventing the mixtape game, he developed into a million-selling rapper with a massive body of work, one so inventive and cunning that it makes his famous claim of being the 'best rapper alive' worth considering.
Lil Wayne will finally release his anticipated album Tha Carter V on Friday. The album has been teased since 2013, and was prefaced by a flurry of promotional singles, legal delays and confusion over its release date.
What do you remember from those first songs, like Get It How U Live! era?
I remember we actually did Get It How U Live! album in Houston. We all brought our cars out there, and we just set up shop. I forgot the name of the studio, but I remember that's my first time I seen Bun B do a 16, in like five minutes. Baby used to always have us write, like, "man, look, that's how y'all supposed to do it." 'Cause Bun B would go in the studio and do his verse so fast. I'm talking about fast, man.
It just was inspiring to see a legend like Bun B in the studio, and we was able to be working with him. And he wound up getting on the Get It How U Live! album, on a song called "I'm Coming." That was a big moment for me because I'm a UGK fan. RIP Pimp C. I loved "Pocket Full of Stones" and all that old school music that they was putting out back then. We was living that life, so we was able to relate to that.
That was my first time doing an album that I was a part of. I was a little shy on that first Get It How U Live! album. That's why I'm not really as much heard on it. But by the time we got to that Guerrilla Warfare, you hear me all over, coming out of my shyness.
What was it like making Guerrilla Warfare ?
I ain't lyin, Guerrilla Warfare rode, man. I like every song damn near all those songs on Guerrilla Warfare because I had gotten better. I got better with time, and by the time we did the second Hot Boy album, I was ready. I believe that album went platinum, double platinum. We did numbers on that album. Just to be a part of that, man, that was legendary.
We actually did that album at Circle House in Miami. We used to shoot dice all the time. Circle House, they had catered food. The guys [Inner Circle] that made the "bad boy, bad boy, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you," they had a studio called the Circle House, named after their group. I remember recording, setting up shop in Miami. We was in Miami for one summer, and we did that album in like a week. And I knew it was gonna be a banger because every song was just a classic.
What do you remember about Big Tymers and those albums?
They was doing their thing, man. Big Tymers, they would go in the studio and just talk some shit. They couldn't rap. They wasn't rappers. They was game spitters. They'd tell you that. Baby actually got better through the years. But at the time, they'd go in there, and Fresh was like a comedian on the mic. And Baby used to say anything. He used to game spit, and he believed that shit himself to where everybody else believed it. They just had good chemistry together, man. Nobody ever did it better than them. They took "they can't rap" and made the world think they can.
What do you remember of Mannie Fresh as a producer?
Mannie Fresh was the best. 'Cause he was a one-man army. He did everything. Mannie Fresh played the keyboards. He played the drums. Everything was Mannie Fresh. He might bring on a few more other dudes, but Mannie Fresh produced all them albums himself. He was great. Mannie Fresh was like the Dre in the South. And to this day, everybody still tries to do the things that Mannie Fresh did.
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