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Music

A Year of Lil Wayne: "Bounce"

If you’re sad waiting for Run the Jewels 3, listen to this instead.

Day 10: "Bounce" – 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne, COLLEGROVE, 2016

Man, I told you​ it was fun listening to these guys doing this oneupsmanship rapping thing. Here's a pro tip: If you're sad waiting for Run the Jewels 3, listen to this instead and I promise you will get your fix of over-the-top fighting metaphors and extravagant surrealism. I mean, Wayne kicks it off with "put your head on backwards / And skate off after / engage in laughter about what just happened." Engage in laughter! And it just gets crazier from there. Pretty soon he adds, "I bit some matches, then sipped some gas and went kiss the dragon." 2 Chainz raps, "I'm so high I can sing to a chandelier." Et cetera.

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But what's great about this song besides Tity Boi and Weezy going back and forth like the battle rap grand prix is that it's an homage to early Wayne, too. I mean, the title is "Bounce," and it sounds like a Mannie Fresh beat, perhaps glossed up a bit for the future. It's produced by Infamous, who I just learned via Wikipedia is a former world DJ champ and used to be in a group with A-Trak, in addition to producing a number of Lil Wayne songs over the years. One of the cool things about listening to a bunch of Wayne out of chronological order, as I've been doing recently, is that suddenly all these through lines become apparent: Here there's a connection to Carter III Wayne—Infamous also produced "Mr. Carter."​ There we hear a bit of Tha Block Is Hot—just as earlier this week I was imagining what Wayne might sound like rapping over a beat like "Loud Pipes"​​​ at this point in his career, now I have one possible result.

And it might be on Wayne's mind, too. In the midst of all these brawny bars, there's an easily missed aside in which he raps, "lord why you took Rabbit from me / I ask he don't tell me nothing." It's like an echo of Tha Block Is Hot's "Fuck Tha World," where Wayne laments losing his stepfather, whom he considered his actual father: "Dear Rabbit, why they have to kill Rabbit?" After nearly two decades, Wayne is asking the same questions. And no matter how developed his superpowers have become, they're still not enough to provide the answers.

Photo: Still of the "Bounce" video via YouTube

Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter​.