A Year of Lil Wayne: "Oh Oh"

Day 109: "Oh Oh" – SQ1 , 2002

Kyle: For all the Lil Wayne songs I've listened to in the last few months that I'd never heard before, few have imprinted themselves as new favorites—my reaction has been more a general growing appreciation of how many great lyrics Wayne has and the sheer agility of his flow. But this one has stuck with me. It's the exact kind of Lil Wayne song I love: Him rapping over a sample-driven East Coast beat and just demolishing punchline after punchline. The best one, here, incidentally, is where he says, "my paper bigger / I even got a few hundreds with Franklin's baby picture." I also love the way—and this is a good early example of this technique that he will use to great effect later on in his career—his voice becomes an instrument of its own, with a rhythmic pattern that's almost independent of what he is saying. It's like listening to Miles Davis riff or something. The only thing I can't figure out is what this beat is. It's driving me nuts. It seems so familiar, but I can't quite place it. Lawrence, what do you think about this song?

Lawrence: I've been trying to find this beat all day and having no luck with it. I'm on the opposite side with what kind of production I like hearing SQ Wayne take on. Yeah, some of his best beat jacks came from East Coast rappers' songs but I think he did his voice and delivery more favors when there was some kind of bang to it. This is the smooth-talking pimp mode Wayne would get into every now and then, and it didn't really resonate. Like, he isn't murking this how he did Styles P's "Good Times (I Get High)" or Jay's "Renegade." With that said, Wayne is gonna be Wayne with them bars. The laid back approach lets his lines hit slicker. Like, "Ice chunks in my fronts when I grunt baby."

Kyle: Even just the way he says something like "watch the way I make my top disappear hocus pocus" or "I leave blood over beats because my heart speaks." I could listen to Wayne go on like this—and this beat—all day.

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