Lil Wayne has announced the release of his next album – a hard-rock record called Rebirth.
Although the album is not available until 7 April, the first single, Prom Queen, has already leaked. As you might imagine, it is a bit of a disaster, with sludgy, churning guitars, self-indulgent solos, and Lil Wayne's voice Auto-Tuned to such an extent that he sounds like a cartoon character.
More disappointing still is that Lil Wayne, perhaps the world's most fascinating rapper, doesn't rap. Instead, he whines and sneers his way through a high-school love story – a turgid drama with an even weaker plotline than Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi.
Lil Wayne's publicist confirmed to MTV News that Prom Queen is no oddity as rock histrionics blemish the entirety of Rebirth.
This new direction was hinted at last year, when Lil Wayne spoke at the BET Hip-Hop Awards. "I don't know if we're gonna release Tha Carter IV now," he told MTV News, referring to the "sequel" to the record-breaking Tha Carter III. "We want Carter IV to be what everybody wants it to be ... But I do have an album coming soon, very soon, and it's gonna be called ... Tha Carter III: The Rebirth. The birth of a new beginning."
Frankly, almost any "new beginning" seems preferable to this first single, but we'll let the world judge. Prom Queen will be released online on 27 January.
