Sorry 4 the Wait 2 shouldn't exist. If Lil Wayne had his way, we'd be listening to Tha Carter V right now, originally scheduled for release in October, which turned into early December, which came and went with only a series of frustrated tweets from the rapper. It's not strange for artists to complain about the glacial pace at which record labels often move, but Wayne's tweets felt less like a display of temporary discontent and more like the words of an artist that has reached the end of their rope—it doesn't get much more black and white than "I want off this label and nothing to do with these people." With rumors swirling that Wayne is ready to take his label, Cash Money, along with his long-time mentor and father figure Bryan "Birdman" Williams to court, the possibility of a reconciliation between the estranged parties seems less and less likely with each passing day.
Amidst this intra-label drama, there feels like there's something at stake in Wayne's music again. Whereas the first Sorry 4 the Wait served a similar function—it was a prime example of mixtape as apology—its sequel carries a sense that its star has his back against the wall for the first time in years. There's a purpose in Wayne's rapping that's been absent for a while, and when mentioning his current situation with Cash Money, he sounds wounded in a way he's rarely allowed himself to be. Over O.T. Genasis' "CoCo", he raps in an exasperated sigh: "Tunechi, niggas don't appreciate you/ You've been down since day one, it meant nothing on day two."
In 2015, Wayne's approach to mixtapes—rapping over beats popularized by other rappers—is an anachronism. These days, the tapes of even the greenest rappers contain mostly, if not entirely, original work. At his peak, Wayne would make beats his own through a manic inventiveness that he's still trying to recapture almost a decade later. There aren't any performances here that will have you dragging the originals to the recycle bin, but there are moments that thrill, like when he lifts the melody of Rich the Kid's hook from Migos' "Jumpin' Like Jordan" and then takes it in about eight different directions on "Trap House".
If there's a word that describes Wayne's rapping on Sorry 4 the Wait 2, it's "engaged." Wayne remains really good at the physical act of rapping, even if now you can hear the gears lurching into action whenever he switches into a double-time flow, like he does on "Selsun Blue", which finds him dropping quotables again ("Got the yay locked down like Kim K.") over the minor-key dread of Roofeeo's "All About the Money" beat. With that said, what used to be knee-slappers have been forehead-palmers for a few years now, and what he presumably considers clever is usually less so by at least half. Mercifully, the groaners-per-minute ratio here is lower than usual, and this is likely due to the fact Wayne's got more than just bad sex puns on his mind.
Wayne's in a weird position: his style has been so thoroughly picked apart that, in many cases, rappers who have absorbed traits of his have taken them to even further extremes. For instance, "Off Day", the immediately-forgettable single he released in November, saw him try to play the oddball. At different points on that song, he sounds like Drake, iLoveMakonnen, and Young Thug—basically, everyone but himself—and it's as cringe-worthy as it is transparent. On Sorry 4 the Wait 2, he's enjoying being Lil Wayne again, for better or worse. It also feels like rapping is once more a choice rather than a contractual obligation, which, at this point, might be the single greatest compliment one can pay Lil Wayne.
