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Music

A Year of Lil Wayne: "Young Money Property"

Grab your thermos; this is thermos music.

Day 33: "Young Money Property" feat. Curren$y, Boo, andMack Maine – The Dedication, 2005

It's always been ridiculous to draw too much of a distinction about Wayne as a Southern rapper, not least because, as I've mentioned​, he's so adamant about being tied into theconversation of legitimacy that comes with the East Coast sound.Here, rapping over an Alchemist beat, Young Money's performance could almost be mistaken for a Bad Boy or Roc-a-Fella posse cut, not leastbecause Wayne addresses the rumors about him signing to Roc-a-Fella​ (as discussed in a skit earlier on the project) and Mack Maine bragsabout "ice everywhere / chinchilla to the flo'" like he's doing his best Diddy impression.

And if you want lyrical pyrotechnics,they're here in abundance. Wayne gets super clever and conceptual about football with this sequence: "Got the bullets coming out the pump / running through your stomach back like a running back / I ain't got the Emmitt Smith bitch I got the Dorsett." With the next line, "AR-33 shooting like a cowboy," he pulls the punchline into relief: Emmitt Smith, the Cowboys running back, wore number 22 (which, you may remember, is a popular caliber of bullet forlow-power rifles), while Broncos running back Tony Dorsett, was number 33, like the AR-33 in question. How does Wayne even come up with something that complex? It's better not to ask questions.

Still, for my money, it's Curren$y who runs the show here, or at the very least he sets the pace for the rest of us. He paints a whole image of his mom lying to the cops and saying he's been laid up in bed with the flu, just as he instructed her to. He avoids getting sent off to "camp" by the cops like Ernest. And, best of all, we learn, "I'm a pimp but I don't move with a pimp cup / I'd rather keep my drinks in a thermos." How endearingly specific. Curren$y is going to keep his hot beverages hot, dammit. Today in New York is a proper rainy fall day, i.e.perfect thermos weather, so play this one, Young Money's New York posse cut, and live like Curren$y.

​Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter​.