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Lil Wayne Reaches for Rock Star Status on "Rebirth"

Mixtape king trades beats for band for next album.

Posted Mar 20, 2009 11:35 AM

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Lil Wayne

Rebirth May

After selling 3 million copies of Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne is going rock & roll on this unexpected set, which ditches beats and rhymes for live drums, Auto-Tune singing and electric guitars.

"This is that rock shit/this is hip-hop, bitch," Wayne warns on one of the album's as-yet-untitled tracks.

"Wayne knows some people aren't gonna feel this," manager Cortez Bryant told Rolling Stone. "He don't care." Rebirth — with cameos by Lenny Kravitz, Pete Wentz and Avril Lavigne — is packed with high-energy jams. While the track list isn't finalized, an early listen included the punk tune "Get a Life" (with the hook "Fuck you! Get a life!"), an homage to vintage Beastie Boys on "Fix My Hat," and the power ballad "Paradise" that seemingly draws from Queen. He even conjures up Prince-inspired guitar and Coldplay-esque strings on select tracks.

"There were rumors Wayne was working on a rock album, but I assumed it was just 808 drums with guitars on it," producer Infamous, who worked on a trio of Rebirth tracks, told Billboard. "But that night when we worked on the track, [Wayne] said he wanted lots of drums, bass and guitars. [We] started to add organs, and [Wayne] said no. That's when I realized it was actually going to be a real rock album."

The sounds may be fresh, but the work ethic is the same. Bryant says Wayne recorded around 30 songs for Rebirth. "He's still trying to give me tracks, and I'm like, 'You gotta stop,'" says Bryant. "'You're driving me crazy.'"

"Everybody says, 'Wayne's a rock star,'" says Marcello "Cool" Valenzano, half of Cool and Dre, the duo behind most of the beats. "He just needed the soundtrack."