2 Chainz and Lil Wayne Welcome 2 Collegrove Review: A Middling Concept Album

A dramatically uneven concept album that demonstrates the rappers’ unwillingness to grow up.

4
2 Chainz and Lil Wayne, Welcome 2 Collegrove
Photo: Def Jam

André 3000 recently told GQ that his long-awaited solo debut isn’t a hip-hop album because, at 48, he felt strange rapping about the things that rappers are used to. If 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne’s latest collaborative effort, Welcome 2 Collegrove, is any indication, the duo clearly don’t share that concern. At one point, on “Can’t Believe You,” Wayne quips, “I’m too grown to be a Chuck E. Cheese fan.” In context, it’s about taking a stance against snitching “rats,” but it’s also a conspicuous moment of unintentional self-awareness.

Case in point: “Transparency” is a repurposing of a previously leaked Chris Brown song. It’s supposedly a somewhat serious song about integrity, but the two rappers groaningly take the titular concept literally, making cracks about, among other things, see-through garments.

Advertisement

This, though, isn’t the biggest problem that plagues Welcome 2 Collegrove, which can be fun in fits and starts and whose most juvenile tracks (“P.P.A.” and “Crazy Thick”) are some of its best. The album’s main issue is a problem endemic to many sequels: It tries to be bigger and better but just ends up feeling lumbering and belabored.

Welcome 2 Collegrove attempts to be a sprawling concept album: It’s a Southern fable divided into five suites or “scenes,” with each introductory interlude narrated (for some reason) by 50 Cent. The vaguely defined narrative follows Tunechi (Wayne) and Toni (Chainz), two drug kingpins who get regularly distracted by women and have to ultimately reclaim the fictional neighborhood of Collegrove (a fusion of Georgia’s College Park and Louisiana’s Hollygrove, their two hometowns) from a young up-and-coming, fentanyl-dealing coalition.

Wayne and Chainz don’t seem to care much about this narrative, and they execute it lazily. The album is full of half-baked songs like “Presha,” which tentatively conflates skirt chasing and drug cooking, and “Millions from Now,” on which the rappers dismissively scoff about how a woman isn’t memorable enough to recall, but neither adds little story development or detail.

Advertisement

On paper, Wayne and Chainz are a classic yin and yang matchup: The former is the off-kilter impressionist and the latter the square-shouldered realist. This dynamic is squeezed for maximum contrast on “G6,” the first track on the album and an ecstatic height that’s unfortunately never matched in the ensuing 19 tracks. Wayne begins the song, and his voice is multi-tracked with little strains and fragments echoing around him. Then the track undergoes a beat switch halfway through as Chainz comes in to do some emphatic spitting.

Still, while the contrast between the two sections is striking, there’s no real interplay or sense that the rappers are in conversation with one another. And there are multiple places where Wayne laps Chainz in delivery. On “Bars,” Chainz subjects us to a sluggish, long-winded address before Wayne takes the mic, attaining a level of hysteria that practically wills the song back to life. He pulls a similar move on “Can’t Believe You,” one of the album’s several R&B-influenced slow jams, and “Crown Snatcher,” where his hot, snappy contributions salvage the track.

Advertisement

Buried beneath the adolescent fixations on commitment-free sex and luxury goods are empathetic, thoughtful sentiments that would seem to come with age. “Significant Other” finds Wayne opining that he “needs somebody” and wants to make a woman cum before him. Elsewhere, “Crazy Thick” might be the most (lovably) lug-headed song on the album, with its chorus of “Still go dumb in you, stick my thumb in you/Both legs up, I’m field goal fuckin’ you,” but then Wayne ends his verse with “I don’t give a fuck about no big tits.” Chainz does him one better, pushing back against the stereotypical and much-derided Black man’s fetishization of white women.

These kinds of moments, though, are too few and far between on Welcome 2 Collegrove. In the end, this is a dramatically uneven project that demonstrates its creators’ unwillingness to grow up and, more damningly, their inability to conceive of a concept and see it through.

Score: 
 Label: Def Jam  Release Date: November 17, 2023  Buy: Amazon

Charles Lyons-Burt

Charles Lyons-Burt covers the government contracting industry by day and culture by night. His writing has also appeared in Spectrum Culture, In Review Online, and Battleship Pretension.

4 Comments

  1. This might be the most ridiculous review I’ve read. There’s literally a sentence about them not growing up, then immeditate praise of one of the most juvenile songs one the album (“Crazy Thick”).

    The album is fun with great beats and lyricism. Sure I’d like to hear some more mature verses from them at some point, but if someone can explain what this reviewer is trying to say I’m all ears.

  2. I agree with Michael, the question is do we really need for rap or hip-hop to grow up with the artist because of there age. Let’s look at comedians, Eddie Murphy to be exact. Can you honestly say that since Eddie Murphy gave us Raw, to being a almost clean cut comedian now, are we still entertain with him like we used to be. Moving back to hip-hop Pusher-T still raps about being a dope boy and apparently people are still supporting his music. The lil wayne & 2 Chains album was fun and I enjoyed their throw back tracks like Big Diamonds & Shame. Right now as it stands, this is so far the best album of the year in terms of straight hip-hop.

  3. Another case of Chainz and Wayne bars flying over the Critics head… This review is massively out of touch, and it seems the Author got in his feelings because of Andre 3k… W2C is arguably an instant classic

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Previous Story

Danny Brown Quaranta Review: Contemplative but Frustratingly Under-Developed

Next Story

Peter Gabriel i/o Review: A Heartfelt Album Muted by a Splintered Presentation