Lil Wayne releases new ESPN collaboration 'Playoff' while 12 unreleased songs from his vault leak online
The rapper Lil Wayne is no stranger to having his new songs leaked ahead of schedule from a variety of dubious sources. In December 2016, fans were treated to an unexpected Christmas present when Martin Shkreli, the notorious "Pharma Bro" felon, played Weezy's still-unreleased (at the time) 12th studio album, 'Tha Carter V' for incredulous listeners. Last week, an unreleased decade-old track that Lil Wayne did with Sean Kingston called 'Let's Ride' surfaced online, along with the news that Lil Wayne was busy making a new commercial for ESPN! But the best news for any artiste's fans is always an official music release sanctioned by that artiste, and Lil Wayne did exactly that yesterday!
On January 13, the rapper dropped a brilliant new sports-themed song called 'Playoff' that is a result of his longtime collaborative relationship with the sports network ESPN. Lil Wayne being a well-known Green Bay Packers fan (the team has advanced to the NFC title game in the NFL playoffs), the new song is a fitting celebration of his passion and love for American sports. Check out the brass-fuelled video here, which features Poppy H, Corey Henry, and the glorious Treme Funktet.
After being treated to some brand-new music from Tunechi, how about a gander at some of his old unreleased tunes? It turns out that some of Lil Wayne's unreleased sessions from the 2012-2013 era (between the 'Tha Carter IV' and 'I Am Not A Human Being II' albums) have been taken out of the deep freeze storage vault and released online by an unscrupulous party.
Somehow, somebody, somewhere (we have very few clues) recently managed to get their hands on a dozen unreleased tracks from Tunechi's vast collection of unmastered studio work and leaked them to the public via the streaming platform SoundCloud. A channel called Roadside Surgery has uploaded the 12 tracks under an album named 'Lost Grails' by Lil Wayne, but the strangest fact about this entire episode is that the track names are all listed in Chinese characters! This was possibly intentionally done to avoid scrutiny from federal authorities and scupper any efforts to effectively trace the source of the leak. The channel also features alleged leaked versions of songs by Young Thug, Chief Keef, and Mac Miller, among other famous rappers that show up whilst scrolling through the latest tracks (Mac Miller's new posthumous album will release this Friday, January 17).
The 12 unmastered scratch tracks are definitely legitimate Lil Wayne songs and they mostly feature working titles like 'Kidnap Kupid', 'Road Lizard', 'Music to My Ears', 'Jungle' and 'Class'. There are also quite a few guest spots that crop up here and there, with featured performers that include familiar hip-hop names like Currensy, Kidd Kidd, Mack Maine and more. You can have a listen to the unreleased album yourself here!
Lil Wayne's latest album 'Funeral' is slated for an early 2020 release, and according to the latest news we received on the matter, it might be out as soon as February.