BREAKING NEWS: Lil Wayne Is Better Than Jay-Z, & Has More Money!

Leave it to Bryan "Baby, Birdman" Williams to make sure that his payche-I mean, artist/adopted son Dwayne "Lil Wayne" Carter stays in the spotlight. Actually, it's not like Lil Wayne ever really leaves the spotlight, or is in need of extra shine time. Between releasing arguably good songs from equally as entertaining albums, tag-teaming the female population with his heart throb protege Drake, unleashing the latest rapping stripper, Nicki Minaj, on an awaiting public, impregnating what seems to be every girl he has sex with, & crisscrossing the country to deal with legal problems from drugs to guns to copyright infringement, one would be had pressed to forget the guy exists. I even heard 'Lollipop' blaring out of this zesty character's Scion the other day. I really didn't think anyone still listened to that song outloud, but leave it to a sexually confused teenage boy to prove me wrong.


This December looks to be a promising one for both Wayne & Baby, as their record company conglomerate, Young Money & Cash Money Records, respectively, prepare to release upwards of 10 (ten) albums. Rightfully so, Baby, who refers to Wayne as his son & signifies such sentiment by kissing Wayne on the lips publicly, has decided to give the Hip Hop world reasons to begin taking about Wayne in preparation of their approaching pay day. Oh, did I mention that Baby bought Wayne a watch for his birthday, estimated at roughly $1 million & got Wayne's birth date tattooed on top of his other tattoos?


In an interview for Tropical TV, Baby was asked about colleague Jay-Z being named the "Top MC in the game" by Mtv.


Said Baby: "I don't think he is the number one emcee in no kind of way. Wayne's the best. He do the most and he make the most money. I don't think no nigga in the business make more money than us".


Us? Freudian slip perhaps? Or maybe Baby is so confident in his ownership of all things Weezy that he doesn't feel a need to censor his entitlement.


"How can you be the best if you don't  make the most money? And you don't do the most? Lyrically, come on man, be for real, can't nobody fuck with Wayne. If you number one and you ain't getting no money it don't mean nothing".


& here I was, thinking that Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter was doing all right or himself. If $250,000 cars, private jets & black blood diamonds fresh out of an African mine workers hands isn't "getting money", then I'm further beneath the poverty line then my paycheck alludes to.


"To me, it's 'who's making the most money'? That's number one to me. Fuck all that rap shit. I don't give a fuck about the rest of that shit. Maybe other ones do, but if you making money, that matters to me."


Thats exactly what I'd expect from one of the game's simplest MC's ever. In fact, the age old debate of the difference between a rapper & an MC can be quelled with one listen to any verse penned by Baby. Dude is further from being an MC than Elizabeth Taylor's housekeeper. He's barely a rapper, & that's only because sometimes he rhymes words, & even then, not all that well. For the sake of argument, younger crowds will usually side with Wayne being the better artist, lyrically, but an older crowd will quickly point out that Jay has 10 #1 albums under his belt, countless #1 singles & has sustained relevance in an industry where attention spans are shorter Amber Rose's hair.

That's not to say that Wayne's without achievements & accolades of his own, such as his 'Tha Carter 3' selling over 3,200,000 copies as of July, but he's far from reaching the same level of notoriety as Jay-Z. Case in point, what Dwayne is attempting with the phantom 'Rebirth' album, Jay-Z accomplished on the million-plus selling collaboration with rap rockers Linkin Park, 'Collision Course', years ago. & Jay-Z has never taken a picture holding a guitar that everyone knows he can't play. Just saying.


Hip Hop is possibly the most competitive of all genres of music. Where else do they dedicate entire records to one another for the sake of conveying a point that a simple showing of the middle finger could? What other forms of music find it's performers fist-fighting, & occasionally shooting at each other's baggage handlers over a lyric? Baby's statement is representative of a bigger, more ominous problem. The art form has been replaced by the business protocol, & it's subsequent result. If a product doesn't garner (an excessive amount of) revenue, in Hip Hop at least, it's widely viewed a failure by the vast majority of it's fickle, yet easily appeased listeners. The irony of Birdman's douche nozzle attitude, is that Jay-Z has successfully navigated both critical acclaim & fiscal success, long before Baby's golden child became addicted to cough syrup & unprotected sex. Personally, I feel that had Wayne been aware that Baby had intentions of such a counterproductive tirade, he would've advised against it.


Record sales are an optical illusion; used to provide insight on how well the artist is doing & generally as a demographic based selling marker. It doesn't determine who's the better rapper. That's up to the consumer to decide. Keeping in mind that exposure is usually the main point of record sells, if no one has heard of you, how could you be expected to sell zillions of units, even with the inclusion of the 'Net? Youtube can only take the unlucky ones so far.


In general, I wouldn't say that Lil Wayne is better than Jay-Z, per se. But, that's veritable apples & oranges, being that Hip Hop has no uniform sound to which it adheres. They are, however, the best at their respective crafts. Weezy's good at hormone-exciting, teenage pregnancy rap, while Jay's lane is reminding the 40 & over Hip Hop head that we still count for more than reminiscing about Run DMC & shaking our fists at whipper-snappers.


As long as we have artists who continue to treat Hip Hop as the artistic outlet it was created to be, I don't believe the culture will implode & cease to exist. But in the meantime, beware. Baby's not the only cat that has such an obtuse, skewered view of what dictates penchant. Hell, Jay-Z's not that far removed from the problem himself.