While Wayne is famously known for grandfathering many of rap’s modern aesthetics, Funeral is just another example of how much better he is than his contemporaries at executing them.
Across the hour, Funeral sounds less like last rites for Wayne and more like a resurrection.
For his new decade debut, Wayne takes a “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach, only hitting the target about half the time.
The problem with ‘Funeral’ is that there’s no real thread holding the music together.
Funeral proves that Wayne's quick-witted rapping might be the only quality keeping his music enjoyable in today's hip-hop scene.
‘Funeral’ is a mixed bag, and feels more like 24 tracks Lil Wayne had lying around than a coherent project.
Wayne’s unheralded 13th studio album proves that the 37-year-old’s flow can still be fearsome, even if his edit function remains iffy.
As for the actual listenability of this album, there isn’t much that will live in the hearts and minds of those who are brand loyal to Weezy F. Baby.
Funeral is wildly uneven, a landscape of pronounced highs and lows.
Cobbled together in the style of a compilation rather than a cohesive album, it's a wonky, slightly disappointing collection that ranges from typically excellent updates on the classic Weezy sound to tracks that weakly chase trends as it provides diamonds and duds in equal measure.
Not living up to its somber title and introduction, Funeral is another unfocused and bloated album from Lil Wayne.
#47 | / | Slant Magazine |