Lil Wayne was arrested for possessing marijuana and a handgun in his tour bus after his performance.
The New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne didn’t make one of his regular boasts — that he’s the “best rapper alive” — when he played his first headlining concert in New York City on Sunday night at the Beacon Theater. Maybe that’s because New York is the home of Jay-Z, who hasn’t fully retired. Or maybe it was because he had plenty else to brag about. The concert was sold out, its surprise guests included Kanye West (who recently played Giants Stadium as part of the Live Earth concert), and the eager audience knew every rhyme from Lil Wayne.
In some ways, Lil Wayne is a prototypical Southern rapper. A decade ago, he and his fellow New Orleans rappers the Cash Money Millionaires popularized the term “bling,” and on Sunday night he arrived glittering with diamonds: in his teeth, around his neck, on his hands. The priorities in his songs are money — made through hustling drugs — and the sex it helps get.
His lyrics are full of gun toting and dope smoking, and Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was arrested after the show and charged with possession of a weapon. The police said that officers smelled marijuana from his tour bus after it left the Beacon, stopped it and found Mr. Carter with a .40-caliber pistol.
In his music, Lil Wayne goes well beyond the basics of “dirty South” hip-hop. His hoarse voice gives his songs a texture that’s both weathered and slyly amused, for a glimmer of New Orleans R&B. He regularly changes up his delivery, borrowing Jamaican dancehall inflections or landing syllables on unlikely offbeats. He also has some quirky fixations: on food, on 1980s movies and on punning wordplay. Over the last few years, he has been ubiquitous, not only on his own albums but also on mixtapes and as a collaborator. He let the women in the audience enthusiastically sing the melody of “You,” a 2006 single by Lloyd that had a guest rap by Lil Wayne.
Unlike some rappers, Lil Wayne can work a stage as effectively as a studio. He arrived wearing a Run-DMC T-shirt — an homage to New York City hip-hop roots — though by the time the set ended, he was bare-chested, showing off his muscles. With a disc jockey supplying the ominous chords, deep bass throb and electronic blips of his tracks, he declaimed nearly two dozen songs — usually the first verse or two before moving on.
The deep-growling Ja Rule joined him for their new collaboration “Uh-Oh” and went on to perform his own “New York,” which boasts about being armed. (Ja Rule, whose name is Jeffrey Atkins, was arrested in a separate incident on Sunday night and charged with criminal possession of a weapon, a .40-caliber handgun.) A sidekick, Mac Maine, the rapper Juelz Santana and Lil Wayne’s mentor, Birdman, also joined him onstage. And to prove he didn’t need electronic help, Lil Wayne sang his new ballad “Prostitute Flange” (actually a love song) and rapped a cappella.
He segued “1000 Degreez” into “Scarface” and did a raunchy new song over an associate’s vocal beat-boxing. He repeatedly proclaimed his humility, profusely thanking the crowd, but he earned the applause. Afterward, the arrest made his mischievous songs slightly too realistic.
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