In honor for the fifth anniversary of his Free Weezy Album, Lil Wayne will be releasing his 2015 project on all streaming services tonight. The album dropped as a TIDAL exclusive on July 4th before Tha Carter V surfaced. This was at a time when he was in legal battles with Cash Money Records and they had C5 on hold. Free Weezy Album (abbreviated as FWA) is the eleventh studio album by American rapper Lil Wayne.It was released on July 4, 2015, by Young Money Entertainment and Republic Records, exclusively on TIDAL. It was released on Spotify and Apple Music on July 3, 2020, to commemorate its five-year anniversary, though some samples were changed due to clearance issues, and some tracks are absent.
Free Weezy: Lil Wayne’s New Tidal-Only Album and the Never-ending Streaming Music WarJohnny Nunez/Getty Images
FWA, the title of Lil Wayne’s new album, stands for “Free Weezy Album,” which can be taken one of two ways. You could take it to mean that this new record has been gifted to you by the multi-millionaire, digital equivalent of the guy on Hollywood Boulevard trying to guilt-trip you into taking his mixtape. In that respect, “Free Weezy Album” could be scrawled on a cardboard sign with a donation hat nearby. The other interpretation is something altogether more melancholy: Weezy as prisoner of Cash Money Records’s unwillingness to release Tha Carter V. Tunechi is a captive of interminable legal strife and this collection of 15 tracks is, in many ways, his message-in-a-bottle cry for help. The second track, “He’s Dead,” kicks off with samples of Dr. McCoy from Star Trek informing Captain Kirk of the death of a patient before Wayne launches into a eulogy for “Cash Money Weezy.” It’s an expression of independence and a reclamation of legacy. He’s trying to escape, but Weezy is not free in either sense. When streaming music services are involved, nothing is free.
I found out FWA was a Tidal exclusive at the worst possible time. I had just spent a good portion of my day in the clutches of Apple Music, the latest entrant in an ever-expanding game of dodgeball where the only goal is to pelt consumers with “exciting” new features until they collapse on the ground begging for mercy. How to unblock download from avast on mac. We live in an age where we can be sold the exact same product over and over again with a fancy new interface. We can be convinced that it’s worth it to be enthralled by a musty old format like Internet radio all over again because this time, the DJs shout at you. It’s as though a new competitor for Tower Records opened every two months boasting better air conditioning. Only music really matters, and on that front, FWA is a clear win for Hov’s beleaguered enterprise. It’s a reminder that Tidal exists at all, an added value proposition that guarantees that a certain segment of the population that’s been holding out will at least sample the goods. A B-sides concert and some music videos weren’t going to convince me to give Jay Z my credit card number, but this did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuiMkAMIDYc
Free Weezy Album Download
Whether FWA is any good is almost beside the point. The fact that it mostly isn’t is secondary to the marketing advantage it affords Tidal. The beats on tracks like “Post Bail Ballin'” are somnambulistic. “My Heart Races On” is a limp-noodle ballad that only suffers more when you get to Wiz Khalifa’s cameo later in the album. Wiz is topping the charts with a ballad that would make a Jesus statue weep and Wayne’s rapping about his struggles over a clinky piano. “Remember me like they remember the Titans,” he warbles on that song. Yeah, we remember, dog. That’s the problem. You may be trying to bury “Cash Money Weezy,” but his ghost will haunt everything you do until you get Father Merrin up in your recording studio. How download from priv mac.
By the time he starts screeching about how he loves his “young bitch” on “Thinking Bout You,” I’m ready to hop into my car and drive into the ocean. The worst you can say about a record is that it’s boring. Well, this is boring. “Glory” and “Murda” actually get better with repeat listens simply for Wayne’s near-impeccable flow, but they still sound like Turtle from Entourage produced them. When the album isn’t shockingly pedantic, it’s straight embarrassing, like “I Feel Good,” which samples the James Brown song of the same name. Sometimes, a song can be too well known to sample, and this qualifies. It should feel audacious to tread on sacred ground, but instead, it comes off as a move Will.i.am would make; a song sure to end up on everyone’s wedding/bar mitzvah/high school graduation mix.
But again, this is not strictly an album. It’s also a well-timed marketing ploy. Download any video mac free. Apple Music’s launch captivated music fans simply by reinforcing its own importance through advertising muscle. They got Taylor Swift. They promised to change radio … again. That’s what Apple is most adept at: making you feel like you are on the precipice of major social change when you interact with their products. “Our new widget will reinvent the way you do everything!” Tidal’s play at revolutionary rhetoric, “Tidal for All,” always felt wrong because all they could do is trot out famous people to shill for them. It was like Milton Berle showing up on Saturday Night Live.
Spotify is in the corner of the party smoking cigarettes and chilling while everyone else tries to outflex each other, and yet the service that has the content will be the winner. I can’t get FWA on Spotify or Apple Music. I can’t get Taylor Swift on SpotifyBut I can get her on the radio and YouTube, repeatedly, until my ears melt.
'>1 or Prince anyplace that streams music legally. The last protracted, painful technology war was between Blu-ray and HD DVD — high-definition video formats that had almost identical technical specs. What really swung the war wasn’t how nice the picture looked or how much data each disc could hold. It was content. Blu-ray had Sony behind it and put its disc drives in every PlayStation 3 video game console. You could only get Sony movies on Blu-ray. Disney and Fox went Blu-ray exclusive, while Warner Bros. and Paramount had dual support relationships. There just wasn’t enough content on HD DVD. You had to buy a special add-on drive just to get HD DVDs to play on Microsoft’s Xbox. Warner Bros. dropped HD DVD in 2008 and it was over.
I finally came to Tidal for music, not for fancy ads or highfalutin rhetoric. Weezy is not free, but then again, music and musicians never will be. It was fun to imagine a utopian ideal of MP3s floating through the air like that bag from American Beauty, but that was never meant to last. Lil Wayne may be a prisoner of Cash Money, but he’s also a hostage in the war to decide who will control the next century of the music industry. The only one who’s really free here is me. I’m free to not listen to his album again.
Filed Under: Music, Lil Wayne, Hip Hop, Tidal, Jay Z, FWA, Free Weezy Album, Apple Music, beats music
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New Orleans, LA Hip-Hop/Rap 561,588 DownloadsFree Weezy Album Stream Spotify Music ConverterFree Weezy Album Stream Spotify DownloadAbout Lil Wayne
A game-changing artist and celebrity, Lil Wayne began his career as a near-novelty -- a preteen delivering hardcore hip-hop -- but through years of maturation and reinventing the mixtape game, he developed into a million-selling rapper with a massive body of work, one so inventive and cunning that it makes his famous claim of being the 'best rapper alive' worth considering. Born Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. and raised in the infamous New Orleans neighborhood of Hollygrove, he was a straight-A student but never felt his true intelligence was expressed through any kind of report card. He found music was the best way to express himself, and after taking the name Gangsta D he began writing rhymes. Combining a strong work ethic with aggressive self-promotion, the 11-year-old convinced the Cash Money label to take him on, even if it was just for odd jobs around the office. A year later, in-house producer Mannie Fresh partnered him with the 14-year-old B.G. and dubbed the duo the B.G.'z. Although only B.G.'s name appeared on the cover, the 1995 album True Story has since been accepted as the B.G.'z debut album both by fans and the Cash Money label. The 1997 album Chopper City was supposed to be the follow-up, but when Wayne accidentally shot himself in the chest with a 9mm, it became a solo B.G. release.That same year, he officially took the moniker Lil Wayne, dropping the 'D' from his first name in order to separate himself from an absent father. He joined B.G., Juvenile, and Young Turk for another Fresh project, the teen hardcore rap group the Hot Boys, who released their debut album, Get It How U Live!, in 1997. Two years later, Cash Money would sign a distribution deal with the major label Universal. Mainstream distribution would help that year's Hot Boys album Guerrilla Warfare to reach the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. In 1998, Lil Wayne would appear on Juvenile's hit single 'Back That Thing Up,' or 'Back That Azz Up' as it appeared on Juvie's album 400 Degreez. Wayne would launch his solo career a year later with the album Tha Block Is Hot, featuring the hit single title track. It went double platinum but the rapper was still unknown to Middle America, since his hardcore rhymes and the rough Cash Money sound had not yet crossed over. His second album, Lights Out (2000), failed to match the success of its predecessor but it did go gold, and with an appearance on the Big Tymers' hit single '#1 Stunna,' his audience was certainly growing. While Fresh was primarily responsible for launching his career, Wayne was now much closer to Fresh's fellow Big Tymer and Cash Money CEO Birdman. When Juvenile left the label, Wayne -- or 'Birdman Jr.' as he was calling himself -- showed his allegiance to his CEO by releasing an album with a title much hotter than Juvie's breakthrough effort. 500 Degreez landed in 2002 and while it went gold, rumors began flying about Cash Money's financial troubles and possible demise. The rest of the Hot Boys had defected and Wayne's planned 2003 album was scrapped, coming out instead as an underground mixtape called Da Drought.Wayne became enamored with the mixtape world after Da Drought drew so much attention from the hip-hop press. He used these underground releases to drum up anticipation for his next official album, the breakthrough effort Tha Carter. Released in 2004, the album seemed familiar on one hand with Mannie Fresh's production, but the Wayne on the cover was a dreadlocked surprise, and the rhymes he laid on the tracks showed significant growth. His marketing skills had become sharper, too, and it was no mistake that the album's hit single, 'Go DJ,' mentioned hip-hop's greatest tastemakers right in the title. It reached number five on the singles chart, and with a guest shot on Destiny's Child's number three single, 'Soldier,' Wayne had officially crossed over. On the flip side, his street cred was supported by a slew of mixtapes released in 2005, including the popular titles Dedication with DJ Drama and Tha Suffix with DJ Khaled. Cash Money's future was no longer in doubt and traditional music business rules no longer seemed to apply, as tracks would be leaked onto the Internet and various DJs' mixtapes. 'Get Something' was another bold move, as a Universal-funded video was made without the track ever seeing official release.With his alternative marketing scheme working in overdrive, the 2005 landing of Tha Carter II was a major event, selling over a quarter-million copies the week of its release. 'Fireman' and 'Shooter' with Robin Thicke were released as singles, while the album -- which for the first time featured no Mannie Fresh productions -- went platinum. It also introduced his Young Money posse, with appearances from Currensy and Nicki Minaj, and initially came with a bonus disc featuring Wayne's greatest hits screwed and chopped by Swishahouse DJ Michael '5000' Watts. A year later he collaborated with Birdman for the Like Father, Like Son album, featuring the hit single 'Stuntin' Like My Daddy.' His mixtapes were still flooding the underground, including the stunning Dedication 2, which came with an iconic image of the rapper on the cover plus the much talked-about track 'Georgia..Bush,' a venomous response to President George W. Bush's handling of the Katrina disaster. With no official follow-up to Tha Carter II in sight, numerous collaborative tracks kept the rapper in the mainstream with 'Gimme That' by Chris Brown, 'Make It Rain' by Fat Joe, and 'Duffle Bag Boy' by Playaz Circle becoming three of the biggest hits.Tha Carter III was promised for 2007 but didn't arrive until a year later, setting off Wayne's infamous reputation of delayed releases. Part of the problem became unauthorized leaks of the album's tracks, something combatted by the official, downloadable EP The Leak released that same year. Preceded by the number one hit 'Lollipop,' Tha Carter III arrived in May of 2008, selling more than a million copies in its first week of release. An appearance on Saturday Night Live and four Grammy Awards -- including Best Rap Album -- spoke to Wayne's mainstream acceptance. He also performed at that year's Country Music Awards with Kid Rock, but rather than rap, he played guitar. The guitar playing was part of Wayne's new involvement with rock music, including his help in signing Kevin Rudolf to Cash Money plus an appearance on Rudolf's massive hit 'Let It Rock.' His planned rock album was previewed with the 2009 single 'Prom Queen,' but when the album failed to meet its promised April release, the music press began to portray the rapper as the king of missed street dates. Unconcerned, Wayne forged ahead with his Young Money crew, releasing the underground mixtape Young Money Is the Army, Better Yet the Navy, the aboveground single 'Every Girl,' plus the official album We Are Young Money that same year. His rock album, Rebirth, would finally appear in early 2010, which coincided with Wayne being sentenced to a nine-month prison term for criminal possession of a weapon. The rapper may have been behind bars on Riker's Island, but that didn’t stop his ten-song EP, I Am Not a Human Being, from seeing the light of day in September 2010. Tha Carter IV was finally released in 2011 along with its lead-off single '6 Foot 7 Foot.' The album reached the top spot on the Billboard 200.In 2013, unfazed by criticism that a controversial verse he contributed to Future's 'Karate Chop' -- he made a reference to Emmett Till, a black teenager gruesomely murdered in 1955 by white men -- was in poor taste, Wayne released a second volume of I Am Not a Human Being. The album debuted at number two and featured the singles 'No Worries' and 'Love Me.' A sequence of singles intended for the repeatedly delayed Tha Carter V ensued, with 'Believe Me,' featuring Drake, an addition to Wayne's stockpile of certified platinum hits. Another track -- 'Nothing But Trouble' featuring Charlie Puth -- was released in 2015 as a contribution to the soundtrack for 808: The Movie. That same year -- to make up for fan disappointment over Tha Carter V's delays -- Wayne self-released Sorry 4 the Wait 2.By 2016, Wayne had become embroiled in a legal battle with Birdman and Cash Money Records, further complicating the fate of Tha Carter V. These continued delays prompted the release of Free Weezy Album, yet another mixtape to tide over his fans. By the end of the year, he published a memoir about his time spent at Riker's Island (Gone 'Til November) and scored another hit with 'Sucker for Pain,' a collaboration for the chart-topping Suicide Squad soundtrack. Featuring Wiz Khalifa, Imagine Dragons, Logic, Ty Dolla $ign, and X Ambassadors, the all-star track topped the Billboard rap chart and rose to number three on the R&B/hip-hop chart.
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