Lil Wayne

For those who have already bought into the Lil Wayne mythology, that genius can be found on Dedication 3, glittering through the 80 minutes of cracked-voice interludes and Sarah Palin soliloquizing, and popping up in Auto-Tuned "verses" between an endless slew of guest rappers. But make no mistake, the record is frequently garish. The parade of MCs spit hard, but do so smuttily and almost exclusively about weed, as if they were going to infuse the subject with Lil Wayne's artistry. Exacerbating the situation, when faced with the quandary of which single off the most recent T.I. record to include, DJ Drama shrugged and threw both on. It would be fun to hear Wayne murder these beats, but his mind, apparently, was on other things -- namely, warbling. To his credit, acknowledging the record's carnivalesque air, he does strive to serve more as a literal master of ceremonies than MC, letting all the other rappers flit by in the spotlight, briefly entertaining as they are. ~ Clayton Purdom, All Music Guide