Drake makes his 83rd Jukebox appearance of the summer…

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Jer Fairall: A much more dolorous affair than the delirious “6 Foot 7 Foot” initially promised, Tha Carter IV finds Wayne spending such an inordinate amount of time moping that many will reasonably end up reading it as a mourning of the life not lived during his Rikers stint.  Certainly the horror movie tingle of this track is something that he would have previously spun something truly, joyfully ridiculous over once upon a time, but here he sounds more like he’s visiting one of Drake’s moody ruminations rather than the other way around.  Were this an actual Drake track, it might actually be something close to awesome, but Wayne can’t even bring himself to sound like the devil on the younger cohort’s shoulder that he did on “Miss Me,” leaving this the rare Wayne track where he is upstaged by literally everything else on it.
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Brad Shoup: In a winning display of discipline, Wayne gets through two tight verses with a minimum of punchline chuckle — he sparks a bowl as many times as he laughs — and more than a few indelible images. Really, the only problem with the verses is their number: somehow, he’s dropped a five-minute single with 32 bars. The rest is padded with Drake’s hooks-without-points. The kid’s still too naive to understand how strip clubs work, but when it comes to his odd obsession with realness, Weezy’s right on board with him. Both of them are pulling their angst off a lower shelf than, say, Kanye, but at least Wayne’s coming correct. T-Minus outfits the track in the appropriate pensiveness, including drums programmed with verisimilitude and Link to the Past-style synth shimmer.
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Alfred Soto: After lending his name to a bunch of rubber donuts, Wayne gets his best track since 2008 (try to ignore the goblin shouting in the last third). Drake, lowering his voice for maximum stentorian effectiveness, foregoes the superstar self-pity. But the star is Wayne: he looks into the face of death and takes the mask off, he likes his house big and grass off, he’s Ray Charles to the bullshit. None of these are witty by themselves but their cumulative power is impressive. 
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Anthony Easton: Love the wit of this, how laconic it is — smoked-up laconic but laconic nonetheless — love the electronic burbles at the beginning and the end, love the drum machine. 
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Zach Lyon: Weezy and Wheelchair Jimmy continue their incorrigible trend of characterizing their sensitive/ever-conflicted/sort-of sad boy essence through yet another disembodied female pronoun. It’s possible that Wayne gives us some nice verses here, but I can’t see past the fact that this is still part of the bullshit microgenre they’ve made for themselves, same lyrical tropes, same moody-to-a-lull beat and all. That’s enough.
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Katherine St Asaph: Tha Carter IV has many problems, but among the worst is that Lil Wayne is upstaged too readily by his guests; on two cuts, Wayne doesn’t even appear. By this metric, “She Will” is a track by Drake, who’s several albums and a new personality away from living up to the boast in the chorus. And guys? Sure she will. That’s what the job entails.
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