Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Little Brother is one of those underground hip hop groups that gained critical acclaim a couple years back, but never received widespread attention. While it may seem like an odd collaboration, I don’t know why I’m still surprised that Weezy is on the track. It's certainly the right direction to go, not only because the self-proclaimed “Best Rapper Alive” has established himself as a formidable emcee, but also his ability to blow up the track.
However, unlike other artists who collaborated with Lil’ Wayne in the past, Little Brother doesn’t take a backseat. They hold their own weight. Wayne’s verse is saturated with clever metaphors, and many might easily dismiss the verse as a freestyle cipher from the 90’s.
I found that the “She loves me, she loves me not” cut in the beginning as well as the hook lacked creativity. It sounds like an old school R&B song bordering trite, holding no emotional resonance. While personally I’m not usually drawn to songs about relationships, the specificity of the lyrical content is honest and on-point. Phonte’s line “Cause a woman's life is love, a man's love is life” on the surface sounds like a gendered stereotype, it speaks volumes about the dynamics between women and men.
Although it’s a romantic track, the track ends with Phonte’s commentary on the younger generation’s misguided consumption and critiques how the ethnic majority are the benefactors of hip hop materialism, proof that Little Brother manages to put out evocative, honest music, which is the basic foundations of hip hop as a musical medium.
Buy at
RhapsodyBreakin My Heart feat. Lil' Wayne (mp3)