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Quote Unquote Shooter

Download: Lil Wayne: "Maneater [ft. Nelly Furtado] (Remix)"

Hello RAP Blogsters!

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Granted I too caught myself thinking how rapper racist the Lil Wayne drug bust story seemed--two stale joints, bottles of pain killers, a hotel room, and a platinum rapper who has probably done infinitely more awesome illegal things and not gotten caught. It hurts our sense of celebrity to think that these superhumans can get in trouble for stuff too. We need our celebrities to be invincible--to do what they want, say what they want, light fireworks, go into 7-11s barefoot, sit in a Starbucks without buying a coffee, hack their cellphones without breaking warranty, etc, etc, etc., so Lil Wayne getting arrested yesterday or whenever is a serious blow to the American ego. Next week, Paris Hilton gets fined for letting her rat dog shit without a scoop-up.

Meanwhile, have we forgotten that $11K is not a lot of money to get your name up in Billboard News, MTV News, SOHH News, Nah Right, XXL, and all these other places? To make up for no radio hit, no public consciousness of your existence outside of mixtape buyers eating up your features and the occasional person who blogs about them? It's certainly cheaper than making a music video, albeit less bad-ass than shooting yourself in the hands or cutting at your face. Wayne's a fab writer and a supreme artist before he's a super star, otherwise "Shooter" would have been the technicolor moment I certainly wanted out of it--video, radio play, daily interviews with Shaheem Reid, whatever. Basically Wayne's bad at being a celebrity--good for the art so far (in retrospect he smartly didn't ride Katrina too hard did he), but I can see this guy anxious for the public to notarize his Best Rapper Alive status now, especially when he's miles ahead of everyone lyrically and totally knows it.

Meanwhile us kids can breathe a sigh of relief: Wayne's an elderly 26.

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