The journey to Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter V took over four years, and in that time the New Orleans rapper continued to amass more recorded material. Once Wayne finally resolved his lawsuit with Birdman and Cash Money, he was faced with his next challenge: making the album sound “new” despite its years-long gestation period. In a new interview with Rolling Stone producers including Ben Billions, Ace Harris, SAK PASE, Cool & Dre, and Myles William explained how their songs came together, and how they reinvigorated records cut as long as five years ago.
“For the past three years I’ve been chipping away at the song,” producer Infamous said about Wayne’s Kendrick Lamar collaboration “Mona Lisa.” “The beat was different, more of a four-bar rap loop. Once I heard Kendrick’s part, they went so in on it, I couldn’t just leave a four-bar loop for them. [The adjustments] started off with, ‘let’s change the chords here, add some strings.’ Then it turned into, ‘alright, let’s cut everything to tape and record everything like it’s the 1960s so I can treat it like a sample and re-sample it.‘”
Genius recently broke down “Mona Lisa,” the most popular Carter V song on the site thus far:
AJayones, who produced “Hittas,” explained that Wayne extensively reworked his original beat. “Usually when you send a beat to Wayne, he’ll ask for the track-outs, and the beat will sound completely different from what you sent him,” he said. “[Wayne] switched the hook with the verse, and he added that sample, which caught me off-guard. It works.”
The songs “Took His Time” and “Used 2” were recorded a while back, but their samples had to be reworked at the last minute. “It was like, ‘we got an hour, can we do it [recreate the original sample from scratch]?‘” Infamous said about discovering sample clearance issues. “I’ve been playing guitar since I was 5, I’m a jazz-trained musician, so he knew I would be able to get something. ‘Used 2’ took all night of sitting there and tweaking it.”
Although Post Malone was slated to appear on Tha Carter V’s ‘What About Me," the track ended up featuring Houston rapper Sosamann. Songwriter Johnny Yukon explained that at least six artists recorded parts for the song, although didn’t elaborate on what spurred the final choice.
Finally, Dre of Cool & Dre hinted at the possible release of a sequel to 2010’s rock album Rebirth. “Next time I see Wayne, besides giving him a big hug and thanking him for including me, maybe I’ll slide him some of these rock tracks,” he said. “Maybe we can get a Rebirth 2.”
Check out the full Rolling Stone interview here and catch up on all the lyrics to Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter V on Genius now.
