There are points during the project where it feels like there’s more intentionality to the cover art - where the word “Funeral” doubles as the word “Lil Wayne” when flipped upside down - than the entire project.Īs album length increases, cohesiveness often decreases. The album as a whole, however, seems to be without a distinct focus or purpose. Wayne also includes a 24-second moment of silence (an ode to Kobe’s number) to end the song “Bing James” on which Los Angeles rapper Jay Rock is featured. “Lawrence Taylor, Taylor Swift, tailor-made, made in China / Blac Chyna, Black Mamba, baby mama, Lady Gaga,” Wayne raps.Īlthough it may have been written months ago, the Kobe Bryant “Black Mamba” reference here feels especially meaningful with the tragic passing of the NBA superstar less than a week before this album’s release. Wayne’s verse is far from the best he’s ever churned out, and contains a laughably phoned-in series of lines where he lists names and subjects that seemingly have nothing in common.

“Ball Hard” might be the best song on the album, if only for its bouncy buy simple beat and a strong verse from Young Money rapper Lil Twist. It’s got a catchy hook, incorporating a famous line from Joseph Addison’s poem “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,” which you might be more familiar with as the hook of Kid Cudi’s “The Prayer.” Wayne has always been good at these emotional tracks since his voice is perfectly suited for a pain-filled verse. Even 2 Chainz, whose name is a welcome sight on any project, punches severely under his weight.Īdam Levine joins in for “Trust Nobody,” a song about, well you guessed it, not trusting people. The features on the album - including a lazy Lil Baby verse and a mediocre XXXTENTACION mini-verse - are equally as unimpressive. Most tracks on Funeral sound as though they were songs left off his last album that he repurposed for this new project. “Clap for Em” starts too abruptly and sounds like a knock-off of Juicy J’s “Bandz A Make Her Dance” or Rae Sremmurd’s “Throw Sum Mo.” The song contains the usual strain of cringeworthy lines on the subject of watching women dance, including the refrain “Shake that ass like a salt shaker.”

It’s hard to tell whether “Mama Mia,” the third song on the project, contains a good verse from Weezy the screeching metal sounds in the instrumental make it damn near impossible to discern and tolerate. Funeral starts strong with a dramatic title-track intro, but quickly becomes tiring and makes you want to listen to hits from 2018’s Tha Carter V to make up for it.

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