Lil Wayne Releases ‘Tha Carter V’

Wayne celebrated the release of "Tha Carter V" and his 36th birthday last night at Hubble Studios in Los Angeles.

"With this album, I'm giving you more than me", Wayne told his fans in a video posted to his YouTube channel earlier this week.

In the cover story for Billboard's September issue, it was revealed that although the song was on the original album's track list, Wayne made a decision to revise lyrics following the tragic deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain this past summer, hence its current outro status. It's impossible to discuss the last 15 years of rap without including Lil Wayne in the conversation.

With the unfulfilled promise of "V" looming over all of those releases, it has pretty much sucked being a hardcore Weezy fan since 2011. Young Money now belongs exclusively to Wayne, and will continue to be distributed by Republic Records.

Months later, Birdman spoke about the upcoming Lil Wayne album again, saying that he didn't have it.

Again, almost a year went by as fans waited and hoped that Tha Carter V was still coming. He says that the album will release on the evening of September 27, his birthday.

Tunechi's signature wordplay is evident near the beginning the album on back-to-back standout tracks "Let It Fly" and "Can't Be Broken". "Ugh We miss you @xxxtentacion", tweeted one fan who was moved by the song. Perhaps that's the biggest surprise of all: The long saga of "The Carter V" actually has a happy ending.