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jasperrollswrites · 7 years

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Transformation Classroom Lesson IV: Time to Swim

Another TF Classroom story, a bit late. The winner this time was randomwolf91 on FA (I THINK he has a Tumblr, but I don’t know what it is), and he wanted a TF into Selkie, the buff seal hero from Boku no Hero Academia. I don’t know the show myself, but I do know the design and I was happy to indulge.

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There was something new in the classroom.

Koro-sensei hadn't noticed it at first - he'd been busy giving the room a bit of a makeover. It had started with him setting up a camera and tripod to take a picture of himself, setting the timer so he could pose appropriately (he could easily make it in front of the camera in the millisecond between pressing the button and it taking the picture, but he wanted the extra time to make sure he looked good). He'd gone through about half the film reel before he settled on a picture he liked, and had then set it upon the wall of "successful students".

That had been all he wanted to do, but then he noticed that the little board looked...direly generic. As he adjusted the pictures of the previous student's before and afters, he realized that it didn't work at all. It didn't have any of his...unique style on it. This couldn't stand, so he'd immediately set to making signs and associated paraphernalia. He was having a lot of fun, making little drawings of himself to give everything that little flair of "Koro-sensei" style.

It was as he was attaching his new "successful students" sign to the noticeboard (more stylized writing, with a little drawing of his own grinning visage beside it), that he noticed the change. He turned to look at the back of the classroom - and saw the door.

It was a solid wood door, unlike the one that was the entrance of the classroom, which had a little window in it. There was a no sign on the door, either. Koro-sensei shuffled over slowly, and reached a tentacle towards the handle, before stopping, and looking up at the ceiling.

"Oh, not yet? Alright." he said, and reluctantly shuffled away from the door, looking a little downhearted at being shut down like he presumably had been. He moved back to the front of the class, and settled down back in his chair. "Is a student coming, then?" he asked.

He was answered in the form of the entrance door opening.

The next student was fairly fat - he had a large belly, and a round face, framed by a brown beard with a goatee. He wore a set of rectangular glasses, and the chocolate brown hair on his head reached down to his shoulders. The green shirt he wore clung tightly to his belly, and his black pants were a little short, exposing the white socks he wore underneath his white trainers. He was carrying the straps of what looked like a heavy bag for sports gear.

Koro-sensei felt himself turn a little pink at the sight of the young man...then blinked, returning back to yellow. That was odd. Before, he'd only felt that way towards girls...it must be something of his previous self coming through. It was a problem of this form, that it was very hard for him to hide his emotions - and the person he'd been before the classroom changed him wasn't very good at either in the first place. No matter.

The young man was quiet for a moment, watching Koro-sensei look at him, before opening his mouth.

"This is...probably going to sound stupid, but is this the room for swimming lessons?" he asked. Another American. "I checked the leaflet, and it said this room, but I thought it would be like..."

"No, no, you've got it in one." Koro-sensei replied. "Swimming lessons, right here. Come, sit down." He gestured at a desk in the front row, and the young man walked over, setting the bag down next to the desk and sitting down in the chair. He had a look of bemusement on his face as Koro-sensei stared at him, grinning quietly.

"Is anyone else gonna..."

"Mm...nope. I'm a one-on-one kind of teacher." Koro-sensei said.

"Are you sure this is for swimming? I just figured..."

"Hmm?"

"I, uh..." the young man stammered a little. "I mean, if I'm honest, you don't...look like a swimming coach, and uh...I just...figured it would be, uh...more...swimming pool-adjacent."

Koro-sensei was quiet for a moment. He looked at the door at the back of the room, then back at his student. "Oh!" he exclaimed, like he'd just realized what the inherent conceit of teaching a swimming lesson was. "Yes. Of course. Well, don't worry about that right now. We need to get to know each other first! I should really start by asking your names off the bat. Calling you all ‘young man' for the first 2 pages is somewhat aggravating."

"Uh..." the student was non-plussed by the comment. "It's Loez."

"Loez! A delightful name!" Koro-sensei said excitedly, feeling himself turn a little pink again before shaking his head to get back to his standard yellow. "Well, Loez, I'm Koro-sensei, and I'm your teacher." He gestured towards the board, on which was still written the explanation of the wordplay his name entailed, to which he had added a little drawing of himself. "I've explained the pun a couple of times already now, and I'd really prefer not to keep on doing it, so just refer to the board if you're ever confused."

He stood up, shuffled over to the desk next to Loez, and turned, doing a little hop so he was sitting on the desk in question. He looked down at Loez, grinning as usual. "So, Loez, why do you want to learn to swim?" he asked.

"Uhh...I dunno, does it matter?" Loez replied.

Koro-sensei put a couple of tentacles against the cheeks of his face in mock horror. "How could you say such a thing?" he said, incredulously. "It's the question that matters the most! If you don't know why you want to learn something, then you're certain to fail!" He raised his left tentacle in the air, closing his eyes, as he rattled off his wisdom. "It is by knowing the core reason we wish to gain something that is the first step to ACHIEVING that something. If you never acknowledge why you wish to swim, then you'll almost definitely drown the second you set foot in the pool!"

"I mean, I don't think it'd be that bad..." Loez said. "...Well...I dunno, I just wanted to try something new? Well, not new...I've swum before, but never, like...formally. I guess I felt like I've been cooped up too long and that...I should do something about that.

"Hmm..." Koro-sensei pondered the words. "So you're looking for a sense of freedom, is what you're saying? And you think swimming might be the way towards that?"

"...I guess?"

"Well, it's an admirable goal, definitely!" Koro-sensei said. "Are we not all looking for freedom, in our own way? Our lives can get us down so easily...where and what we find our freedom in is not for others to judge. A common sentiment that anyone in the world can understand." He hopped down off the desk. "Well, with that out the way, we can get started with the actual lesson. Come along, come along." He began shuffling towards the door at the back of the class. Loez got up after him, picking up the sports bag, struggling with it a little.

Koro-sensei reached towards the handle of the door, quivering a little with anticipation.

"Uh, isn't that just the door into the classroom next do--" Loez started saying, but was cut off as Koro-sensei opened the door...and the unmistakable smell of chlorine filled the air. Koro-sensei stepped to the side, letting Loez look...and what he saw was impossible.

It didn't initially SEEM impossible - what was through the door was a tiled floor, surrounding a rather large swimming pool. All well and good, but Loez knew for a fact that it shouldn't be there. He'd been outside in the hall only a few minutes earlier, and he knew there should be a classroom in that direction. The width of the room extended beyond the boundaries of the classroom, another impossibility.

"How the fuck...?"

"Please don't swear in the classroom", Koro-sensei said absentmindedly, still looking at the swimming pool. He turned to look at Loez, but he wasn't there - he was by the exit door, about to open it.

"Oh! Where are you going? Don't you want to learn how to swim?" Koro-sensei yelled.

Loez turned back to look at him. "That...that shouldn't be there! I saw..."

Koro-sensei looked up at the ceiling. "I think you might have pushed it a little too far." He murmured, then looked back at Loez. "I don't think you want to go through that door."

"What?" Loez asked, the exit door already half open.

"Mm...well, it's your choice, but...if you leave this room, I get the feeling you won't be able to come back in."

"Wh...are you threatening me?" Loez asked.

"Nyuruhuhuhu...nothing like that." Koro-sensei replied. "It's just...the nature of this room. If you walk out that door, when you come back, this room will not be here. It will be another room entirely." He looked back up at the ceiling, looking a little irritated. "I know what I'm doing." He hissed under his breath.

Loez paused, unsure whether to leave or not. Good. "I'm not trying to trap you or anything, I promise. This is the face of a teacher you can trust." he said. "Please. All I want to do is teach. You want to learn, you wouldn't have come here otherwise. There's an opportunity here to find the freedom you're seeking, and...it would break my heart to see you walk away from it."

The spell of the room worked its way into Loez's mind, and he gradually, slowly accepted the idea of the impossible room. Koro-sensei felt a little bad. He'd just said he wasn't trying to trap the young man, but in a sense he was...but his intentions were honest. People came to this room looking for a form of freedom...he just wanted to give it to them.

Loez walked back over, picking up the sports bag, and slowly walked through the door into the swimming pool area. Koro-sensei followed after, closing the door behind them.

Now they were inside, they could see the room a bit better. All the walls and floors were sparkling clean white tiles. An image of a beach was painted on the wall to the right, with splashing waves taking up most of it, little droplets of water falling away from the waves painted waves. The pool itself was completely still, but it looked perfectly clean.

Loez wandered over to the edge of the pool. They were at the deep end, and Loez looked down nervously into it. He looked around for Koro-sensei, and saw him standing next to the beach mural. He had taken out a sharpie pen from somewhere, and was drawing on the wall. After a second, he stepped away, to reveal his handiwork - he had drawn his own face on one of the water droplets.

"Nyuruhuhuhuhu! Much better, don't you think?" he asked, shuffling back over to Loez. Loez was silent. "Well, you don't have to fall over yourself with praise." Koro-sensei replied to his non-answer. "So, where would you like to start? The deep end? I think the deep end is good."

"Uhh...isn't there somewhere I can change? I brought swimming gear with me, and--" Loez began.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about all that stuff." Koro-sensei said nonchalantly, and, raising a tentacle, swung it down and smacked it into Loez's back, sending him careening into the water. Loez immediately felt the water soak into every part of his body, as he sunk into the pool. His t-shirt clung even tighter to his body, his pants felt super heavy as they soaked up the water, and he felt the horrible sensation of water getting in his shoes. He flailed for a moment, unsure what to do, the bag he'd been carrying floating away from him as the straps came away from around his hand, then found himself, and tried to swim up to the surface. It was difficult, especially with Loez's comparatively limited understanding of how to swim, but eventually he made it, breaking the surface, his hair soaked.

He took a breath of air, and started treaded water, as he oriented himself to look at Koro-sensei, still standing on the side of the pool. Despite standing right in the radius of the splash from Loez's fall, he seemed curiously dry.

"What...the fuck? What kind of teacher are you?" Loez shouted angrily.

"One who knows how to get the best out of his students", Koro-sensei replied, grinning all the while. He knelt down, and reached a tentacle towards Loez's face, taking the wet glasses off him and setting them on the side. Loez began to swim for the ladder nearby, but in the blink of an eye, Koro-sensei was standing at the top of them, blocking the way up.

"Hey! What the hell is this?" Loez asked. "Are you gonna let me drown?"

"I'd never do such a thing, Loez!" Koro-sensei replied. "If anything goes wrong, I'll be sure to help, but at the moment I'm sure you can handle this. Once you handle swimming with clothes on, you'll be able to handle swimming with clothes off like it's nothing!"

"I don't think this is how they teach swimming!" Loez yelled, treading water still.

"What can I say? I have a unique style." Koro-sensei replied. "It'll pay off, trust me. Now, I want you to swim to the other end of the pool. Quickly, now!"

Loez reluctantly started swimming, doing a breaststroke as best he could manage, but it was tough with the clothes weighing him down. He couldn't bring his legs up to kick properly, his trainers and pants feeling like heavy weights pulling him down. However as he got further along the length of the pool, it seemed to be getting easier. This was for a couple of reasons.

First, his clothes were becoming tighter, but lighter. He couldn't tell, due to the feeling of water overriding everything, but his clothes were beginning to change. The rubber of the lower part of his trainers was becoming harder, thicker, and more resistant to the water. The white colour darkened, going to grey, then a darker grey, then pure black, as notches formed on the underside. The leather parts of the shoes were morphing in a different manner, although they too were losing the white colour, darkening to a similar black. They ripped away from the soles, riding up the heel of his feet, but still attached to the front part covering his toes. They extended backwards, riding up his legs, flattening out into a pair of flippers attached to the back of his legs, connected to the front part of the changed shoes by a hinge - if he knew they were there, he could flick his feet and he'd be wearing the flippers.

His socks meanwhile, were connecting to the cuffs of his pants. They stuck together, then merged together, as the varying cotton of both materials smoothed out, beginning to cling tightly to his feet, ankles and shins. They became a flexible rubber, like that worn by a scuba diver. As he kept swimming, the conversion from cotton to rubber continued up his legs, over his knees...the colour was lightening too - on his shins, it became a light grey, with lines segmenting it up, while over the rest of his leg, it was lightening to a dark blue.

All of this conversion, of pants to tight rubber, served to highlight the second reason Loez was finding it easier to swim as he went - his leg muscles were getting stronger. As his pants clung to his legs, the muscles in his legs tightened, becoming stronger, the fat in them converting to muscle. The soleus muscles, the vastus lateralis muscles - all of them were pumping up, getting more and more powerful. They weren't the muscles of a bodybuilder, but rather the lithe, tight muscles of a swimmer. The rubber clinging to his legs only served to highlight just what was happening to him.

Koro-sensei was shuffling alongside him at the side of the pool. "Keep going!" he yelled. "You're doing great!" Loez could only barely hear him, the splashing of his arms making it hard to hear anything else.

He finally reached the shallow end of the pool, where he was finally able to rest his feet against the floor of the pool as soon as he could...but the second he did, Koro-sensei was chastising him. "No, no, swim all the way! There's no point if you don't go the whole hog!" he yelled at the beleaguered swimmer. "You can put your feet down when you touch the side!"

He kept swimming, and as he did, the rubber continued to climb up his legs, turning everything dark blue as he went. By the time he finally reached the side, it had gotten up to his waist...where it had started to connect with his shirt. Loez let his feet rest against the floor of the pool, and put his arms on the side, feeling exhausted already.

"Very good, Loez! I said you could do it, didn't I?" Koro-sensei said. Loez looked up to see the octopus-like teacher leering down at him, although he couldn't really see Koro-sensei clearly, given that his glasses had been taken off him. "That's an olympic length swimming pool, and you just swum the whole thing with your clothes on. Quite a feat, I would say."

"How is this meant to help me get any better at swimming?" Loez asked, between ragged breaths.

"You'll see", Koro-sensei responded. "Now, back to the other end. Quick, quick!"

"I'm...really tired...I can't..."

"Yes, you can. Or at least your legs can, can't they?"

"Wh..." Loez looked down, but he couldn't really get a good look at his legs from how he was standing, his belly blocking the way for the moment. But he couldn't deny what Koro-sensei was saying. His upper body felt tired, but his lower body...his legs felt like they could keep going. For ages. "How..."

"Come on, come on!" Koro-sensei urged him. "If you don't feel like you can use your arms, you can use just your legs for this length. Swim like a mermaid! I'm not letting you get out until you do."

This was without a doubt, the weirdest swimming lesson Loez had ever taken. But he turned, and pushed off with his legs, swimming underwater this time. He didn't get very far, his belly drastically decreasing his aerodynamics and making him lose momentum...but that was about to be fixed. As he swam, he let his arms hang close to his sides, and kicked with only his legs held together, like a mermaid, as Koro-sensei suggested...and it was a lot easier than he thought.

His powerful new leg muscles were making the mermaid style a cinch to do, and the changes that were progressing along up his body were only making it easier. The rubber had connected to his shirt now, and was beginning to convert that into even more rubber, making his clothes into a one-piece that was beginning to cover his entire body. The green colour faded from his shirt, deepening to a dark blue that matched the rubber on his legs, and as it did so his fat began a similar conversion.

His belly was losing its bloat, the fat becoming sucked into him and rising, bubbling up his body, turning into more muscle. His abdominals were hardening, becoming tight and lithe, while his soft moobs were hardening, becoming tough and firm, the muscle inside them getting tighter and powerful. His back was becoming broader, as the shirt continued to convert to rubber, clinging tightly and showing off his back muscles.

A hole opened up in the centre of the shirt, as it began to split, widening as it did, exposing his chest, which was becoming more muscular by the second. The rubber continued to rise, going up to around his neck, and the collar began to rise, encircling his neck, but not clinging to it like the rest of the pants-and-shirt-turned-wetsuit was.

The cotton down his arms continued to be converted into rubber dark blue rubber, as the sleeves lengthened down his arms. The rubber continued to grow, mid-way, the colour changing to the same grey that coated his legs. It kept going down along the arms, and as it did, the arms grew in muscle as well. The biceps and triceps pumped out with power, and Loez was beginning to lose the aching feeling, like he could swim with his upper chest again...but he didn't really want to. It was weird, but the whole mermaid swimming thing felt...right. Like it was how he was meant to be swimming. His hands grew in size, the palms becoming broader, the digits getting thicker, retaining their human shape, but beginning to look more like flippers in some ways, considering how big and muscular they were getting. A patch appeared on the left shoulder of his jumpsuit - a white rectangular shape, with a red ‘S' inside.

Loez broke the surface, touching the side of the pool at the deep end, and Koro-sensei was standing over him again. "Getting easier all the time, isn't it?" he asked, and Loez found himself nodding. He didn't notice how his body had become more of a bulked out swimmer's build, or that he was now wearing a wetsuit. All he could think about was swimming, swimming more. He looked expectantly up at Koro-sensei, who knelt down, and extended his body a little over the edge so he could get face to face with Loez.

"Now, show me what you can really do."

Loez grinned with zeal, and curved back into the water, showcasing a level of athletic prowess he couldn't have possibly managed about 5 minutes earlier. He quickly reached the bottom of the pool, and began to twist through the water in a way that was distinctly unachievable by a human body...and it was beginning to show. His skin was beginning to turn grey underneath the wetsuit, becoming a little bit rubbery and smooth itself. The grey colour flowed up his body like the wetsuit had done, crossing his muscular chest, exposed by the open zipper of his wetsuit, and his hands beginning to look more flipper-like as they too turned grey.

Now it was running up his neck, little black dots appearing on the nape of his neck as the skin transformed. His hair was falling off his scalp, drifting away in the wake of his movements through the water, before disappearing entirely. The goatee part of his beard did the same, but the rest of the beard remained firmly stuck to his chin. His mouth was pushing out to meet with his nose, which was flattening against his face, while whiskers pushed out across his cheeks as his face became the muzzle of a spotted seal. The hairs on his chin lightened, losing their chocolate brown colour, and becoming white. As the final touch, his brow furrowed, as his eyes became sharp and fierce, and were framed by red markings that extended out to the side of his face.

The seal-like man swam to the middle of the pool, went down to the bottom, and then pushed up with his feet, and rocketed out of the water with such force that he rose up into the air, performing a backflip that sent him towards the side of the pool, before landing with a wet slap on his feet.

"How's that?" Selkie asked in his new, deep voice, and winked at Koro-sensei, who was already standing next to him, somehow still dry despite once again being in the radius of the splash.

Koro-sensei was...clapping his tentacles, for lack of a better word. They made strange squelching noise as he slapped them together in his approximation of applause.

"Most excellent, Selkie! The name of Sea Rescue Hero is truly an apt one for a hero such as yourself" he said.

Selkie laughed a little nervously. "Well, I'm not really one to brag...but it's nice to show off every so often, you know?" He looked around the pool. "Ah...where are my goggles?"

"Right here", Koro-sensei replied handing him a pair of yellow goggles that some minutes earlier had been a pair of glasses.

"Thank you very much..." Selkie said, taking the goggles. The two anthropomorphic creatures, one a seal, one...octopus-adjacent, began walking along the side of the pool, back towards the classroom. "It's nice to show off for a colleague", he said, "but...I can't help but always be disappointed by swimming pools. They're nowhere near as majestic as the ocean...plus all the chlorine makes my skin itch!" he complained, scratching the nape of his spotted neck.

"I know" Koro-sensei replied. "I did ask them not to put chlorine in this time, but I think people just pretend they heard me half the time."

They re-entered the classroom, and Koro-sensei closed the door to the pool behind them. He glanced at the noticeboard - the new photos had already appeared.

"Well, if that's everything..." Selkie said, heading towards the door leading out of the classroom.

"Yes, I think that's everything..." Koro-sensei said...and found himself turning pink again. "I really appreciate the assistance, Selkie."

"Well..." Selkie clenched his hands into fists, and raised them to just under his chin in an attempt to be cute. "You're welcome!!"

Koro-sensei turned yellow again. "Mmm, you're not quite as good at being cute, like I am."

Selkie laughed a deep, loud laugh. "Then you'll have to teach me! See you later, Koro-sensei!" and with that, he gave a salute, and left through the door.

Koro-sensei smiled after him...then looked down at the floor, and noticed the big wet puddles the seal man had left behind. "Oh, for..." he grumbled. "Can't these people be less messy when they transform?"

#writing #transformation #transformation classroom #koro-sensei #selkie #assassination classroom #boku no hero academia

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213hiphopworldnews · 6 years

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‘Tha Carter V’ Is An Entertaining Reminder Of What Made Lil Wayne Great In The First Place

Young Money

Starting as it does with the almost uncomfortably ghostly crooning of late rapper XXXtentacion on “Don’t Cry,” Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter v is as mournful as it is celebratory. Clocking in at 23 tracks, it joins the list of uncomfortably long projects that have come to dominate the streaming service landscape, yet with good reason: The album is both a celebration of Lil Wayne’s longevity and perseverance and it’s a haunting look back at just how long it took Wayne to get here. Yet, at the heart of this duality lies a simple truth: The rap game is better with Weezy in it, and The Carter V is an entertaining reminder why.

Tha Carter V‘s long, troubled gestation period has been well-documented, as have the various health and financial issues that have supposedly dogged Lil Wayne himself throughout his forced hiatus. The album’s existence alone would be a testament to his resilience and boundless creative energy, but fortunately, the music itself justifies both the wait and album’s duration as a pure demonstration of Wayne’s continued lyrical sharpness.

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Because he is Lil Wayne, he could have tossed out a rushed, slapdash project or a collection of older tracks from his catalog of, apparently, hundreds, to general acclaim to appease the demographic who stuck it out with him through the most recent drought and introduce himself to a generation weaned on his musical descendants. But because of who Lil Wayne is, his professional pride just wouldn’t let him get away with that. He had to prove himself. He does that, but he also proves why he never needed to do so — at least in the eyes of his staunchest fans.

In many ways, Tha Carter V is a little like some of the other albums released by aging vets this past year. On Eminem’s Kamikaze, the aggrieved Detroit rapper brought critics and political enemies alike to task in an extended, belligerent apology for his previous album, 2017’s wayward Revival. Wayne does a little of the same here, making up for the previous Tha Carter IV, as well as reestablishing his technical prowess, something that had become a bone of contention in his time restricted from actively appearing on many peers’ projects. However, for him, crafting tricky rhyme schemes doesn’t need to be such a self-serious exercise. He rhymes with the best of them, but he would never have fit in on Rawkus.

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Likewise, Nas’ Nasir carried the onus of proving that the aging Queens legend could innovate stylistically and find new depth lyrically with Kanye West’s production finally supposedly alleviating the primary complaint of Nas’ catalog so far. Wayne was faced with the same predicament; if he returned with No Ceilings quality bars and more awkward crooning than ferocious rhyming, he would likely lose the last of the goodwill he’d garnered with the first three entries in his Carter series. If he failed to adjust to the newly confessional tone of modern rap, he’d miss a prime opportunity to connect to two generations of fans. One loves the modern style of weeping wound, freshly-snatched Band-Aid grunge hop, while the other is simply looking for more substance from musical heroes that have largely lapsed into complacent, one-note pandering (see: Scorpion, Queen, and Daytona all from acts most closely associated to Wayne and his rise to prominence).

Wayne surpasses the competition though, in that he never lets his need to construct a complex bar override the sheer enjoyment of rhyming. His rhymes continue to be shot through with his trademark, Halloween prank sense of humor and wicked gift for slick comparisons and magician trick wordplay. On “Start This Sh*t Off Right” he flexes and flips word meanings like a three-card monte hustler: “I f*cked around and made a buncha f*ck around money / Now I feel like found money / I’m fuckin’ awesome, ’til awesome have a child for me / Got homies who ain’t comin’ home ’til the cows coming.” On “Mona Lisa,” he reels off a compelling crime narrative alongside GOAT heir apparent Kendrick Lamar, detailing a late night setup and the easily lured loyalties his star status grants him.

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He gets surprisingly deep too, for someone with so many toilet puns in his repertoire on “Don’t Cry” and “Let It All Work Out.” XXX’s aforementioned guttural groaning smartly sets the stage for revelatory bars from Wayne on the former, while the latter functions as a Sampha-assisted therapy session, dragging Wayne’s closeted skeletons out for the sort of exposure that seems harder and harder to draw from celebrities later in life, as it seems their every move is publicly assessed and analyzed for maximum entertainment value. Yet, the devil still hangs out in the details, and Wayne’s raw, unflinching examination of motivations and means in his 1994 self-shooting incident — now revealed to be a suicide attempt after being told he couldn’t rap anymore. Rap is literally Lil Wayne’s life and his willingness to interrogate the nooks and crannies and idiosyncrasies of both is what drives his constant pushing of boundaries and the limits of the art.

It’s also what prompts him to pay homage when and where he can, marrying the old to the new. “Uproar” is a rather straightforward sample of G-Dep’s “Special Delivery,” but Wayne’s specific attack on the beat gives it a renewed vigor — and turns it into prime viral meme material as an Uproar Challenge has already surfaced, which Wayne also participated in with his younger kids. “Dope N—-z” with Snoop Dogg likewise updates an early-century hit with its filtered interpolation of Dr. Dre’s “Xxplosive,” on which Snoop featured as well. Wayne introduces the world to his daughter on “Famous” and skips from soulful choir samples — a hallmark of the Carter series — on “Dope New Gospel” and syrupy trap with Travis Scott on “Let It Fly.” He has, in short, mastered the art of aging gracefully by remaining musically curious and generous with his platform.

Which is why the album’s length isn’t as bothersome as some of the other efforts this year. Wayne doesn’t get repetitive, because there’s a pure joy in his rap that keeps him from growing complacent. He’s never satisfied with knowing where he is or where he’s been; he needs to push, to explore, to expand his references and his styles, beats, and features. With so many years in the rearview, Wayne’s innovation is easy to take for granted, even if we can’t forget it with so much of his influence permeating the game. Tha Carter V is a much-needed reminder of how much Wayne has contributed to the game — and, if we’re lucky, how much he still has to give.

Tha Carter V is out now via Young Money. Get it here.

source https://uproxx.com/hiphop/lil-wayne-tha-carter-v-review/

#hiphop #hip hop legend #hip hop history #hip hop #music #trending #hip hop news #ballin #hip hop scen

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