Lil Wayne has seen his share of highs (no pun intended) and lows in the past six years. Since the release of his ‘04 album, Tha Carter, he has been on a mission to takeover the hip-hop game. The retirements of Jay-Z and Eminem made it seem that much easier. With countless mixtapes, guest appearances, and remixes, “The Best Rapper Alive” climbed to the top of not only the hip-hop charts, but also the pop charts. He solidified his spot on the top with the ‘08 release of Tha Carter III (which sold an impressive one million units in its first week.) After opening ‘09 with earning four Grammys and a one year prison sentence, Weezy decided to trade in his mic for a guitar. He announced that he would be releasing a rock-themed album entitled Rebirth.

1. American Star (Featuring Shanell)
2. Prom Queen (Featuring Shanell)
3. Ground Zero
4. Da Da Da
5. Paradice
6. Get A Life
7. On Fire
8. Drop The World (Featuring Eminem)
9. Runnin' (Featuring Shanell)
10. One Way Trip (Featuring Kevin Rudolf)
11. Knockout (Featuring Nicki Minaj)
12. The Price Is Wrong.

Who knows what inspired Wayne to make a “rock” album. Maybe it was hip-hop’s recent fascination with the rock star life. Maybe it was his ‘08 collaboration, “Let It Rock,” with Kevin Rudolf. Or maybe it was because he was bored with the rap game. Whatever the reason, he released (after several months of delays) Rebirth and it debuted at number two on the Billboard.

I don’t know much about rock music so I looked at this album from a hip-hop perspective. The intro track, “American Star,” features generic sounding electric guitars with Young Money artist Shanell providing the chorus. Wayne calls himself “a dope boy with a guitar.” It’s a pretty weak opener. Next is the first single from the album, “Prom Queen.” This is actually a good and listenable song with production from DJ Infamous and Drew Correa. It’s a basic hate-me-when-I’m-broke-love-me when-I’m-rich tale with Weezy singing “never forget the day / she laughed and walked away” and screaming “but now the prom queen! the prom queen! / is crying, sitting outside of my door” on auto-tune.

“Ground Zero” is an attempt at early 2000 sounding metal with creepy guitars and pounding drums. Wayne’s fixed up vocals sound odd amongst the frenetic beat. There aren't any lyrical highlights like most of his songs and is really forgettable. He drops the ball again on “Da Da Da.” It sounds like his attempt at futuristic rock music with atrocious lines like “give me that monkey, yeah that funky monkey” and “you so fine that your body need a body guard.”

The momentum changes once again with “Paradice.” Over a mournful instrumental, he sings “oh no! this ain’t paradise!” and raps “call me crazy, I been called worse / it’s like I have it all, but what’s it all worth?” It’s one of the best songs on the album. However the next song, “Get A Life,” may be the worst. It sounds like the producer mixed any random instruments together with Wayne insisting he record after drinking a gallon of syrup and smoking ten blunts. He doesn’t even seem like he’s trying. “On Fire” sounds like his attempt at a club-rock song. With a quick hip-hop drum beat and synth sounding guitars, Wayne goes into one of his comfort zones and raps/sings about a girl. Not anything really special about this one.

The highlight of the album is “Drop The World” featuring Eminem. On this unlikely collaboration, Weezy Baby and Slim Shady get emotional on the mystic beat. Wayne poetically raps about rising above his problems, “serve to survive, murdered and bribed / and when it got to heavy I put my burdens aside” and Eminem goes on a lyrical assault on his verse. This is what the whole album should’ve sounded like. “Runnin’” showcases the vocal talent of Shanell once again with Wayne rapping “the loser, microphone abuser / feet hurtin’, I just walked from Jerusalem.” Shanell handles the chorus and sounds pretty good as far as females singing on rock tracks goes.

The Travis Barker and Kevin Rudolf produced “One Way Trip” is another highlight of the album. With two experienced rockers handling the production and chorus, Weezy decides to do what he does best over a simple beat spitting “when I play sick, I’m Jordan with the flu” and “poppa was a rolling stone, I was born to rock.” He then goes on to try his hand at pop-rock with his Young Money artist, Nicki Minaj. “Knockout” is an up-tempo song dealing with sex, the usually topic of collaboration with Wayne and Minaj. It sounds out of place amongst a variety of dark songs on the album. The album ends with “The Price Is Wrong,” another terrible attempt at rock. Wayne screams about one of his ex-girlfriends over a rambling guitar. A bad way to end an album.

The album is misguided and it’s obvious that Wayne and his people aren’t too familiar with rock music. The album goes back and forth too much (mostly back) and contains Wayne’s versions of a lot of types of rock. When he tries to make “rock music,” (“American Star,” “Ground Zero,” “The Price Is Wrong”) it sounds like he heard something on the radio and copied it very horribly. But when he mixes hip-hop and rock together (“Paradice,” “Drop The World,” “One Way Trip’”) the results are much better. This album isn’t much of rebirth of his music and will probably tarnish his career. Hopefully he doesn’t try it again and sticks to rapping and singing on auto-tune.