2008 Man Of The Year: Lil’ Wayne

lilwaynemanoftheyear2008

In 2008, my views on Lil’ Wayne were mixed. While I wrote articles like 10 “Simple” Reasons Why Lil’ Wayne Is NOT The Greatest Rapper Of Alive, I also wrote articles like The Three Most Memorable Verses Of 2008 (Which I ranked Weezy’s second verse on “A Milli” at #2). So me writing this article awarding Lil’ Wayne the coveted title of nappyafro’s Man Of The Year may seem weird since my views on Wezzy F. are so erratic (Remember this award is for Hip-Hop; otherwise I think a guy reppin’ Chi-Town not named Kanye had a bigger year and deserves it more). I think most people would find it hard to argue that 2008 wasn’t “The Year Of Wayne” (Including me). Let’s call off some of this years accomplishments for Weezy: He sold a million copies of his highly anticipated album Tha Carter III in the first week (Even after being leaked a full 2 weeks earlier), got 8 Grammy nominations (The most ever by a rap artist), worked on a documentary that will premier at the Sundance Film Festival, was a heavy presence at both the MTV Video Music Awards and BET Hip-Hop Awards, did commercials for both Nike & Gatorade, and of course, was the go to rapper for a cameo. And that’s only what I can think of off the top of my head. While Wayne is attacked for constantly flooding the market with new material, his work ethic of past years returned its benefits this year…in a big way. Yeah, I may think the quality of his current material is dropping (Did you HEAR Dedication 3?!), but I guess you can’t win them all huh? 2008 will go in the Hip-Hip history book with a lot of entries but the main one will be The Year Lil’ Wayne Became A Superstar. Now, as for 2009? I think he said he doing Rock & Roll or some bullshit like that…

Runner Up: T.I.

Founder
  1. Hands down, the clear winner. I’d say T.I. comes in a close second: 2 #1 singles, 2 records broken, 600k sold in the first week after his album leaked about 3 weeks before the release, and all that while facing jail time coming closer and closer. That’s some real shit.

  2. Man it feels good to be back home so i can get on this nappyafro thing u feelz me??

    I think i made it just in time since i see we got the awards, this should be good!

    As for this one, i must say i agree because, whether you like wayne or not he accomplished things this year that no other rapper has done in a while and for some things no rapper has EVER done. I’ve always believed every rapper has a year where they blow the competition away, not from a lyrics perspective, but as in sales and other accomplishments. We just hope those people can continue to do it and keep this hip hop thing going!

    Think about it

    2008-Lil Wayne
    2007-Kanye West(GRADUATION)
    2006-T.I.(King dropping, ATL, young dro going platinum 2)
    2005-50 Cent(Selling a mill in a week for the massacre, his movie, etc.)

    P.S. I agree HIGHLY with the runner up as well.

  3. Man, i’m so over 2008 and Lil’ Wayne. He takes last year hands down but 2009…… It’s Dr. Dre’s year. Detox, Relapse, Before I Self-Destruct, and maybe some other surprises (Hopefully). Real hip-hop is coming back. Runner up of 2009 will Jay-Z and the Blueprint 3. Hopefully Kanye drops Good A** Job this year and not something stupid like…. 909s & Still Ain’t Fine. Notorious Soundtrack looks like it could be good too. So i’m liking the 2009 prospects!

  4. @Philly
    So your saying 2009 is the year of Aftermath

    But back on topic. I will agree with this one. No matter how badly I don’t like Wayne’s whoring and putting out bad quality stuff(when he drops quality I’m fine with it), but either way, there is no avoiding the fact that last year was the Year of Wayne. I saw people who didn’t even like hip hop buy Tha Carter III, you see people BUYING a free and horrible mixtape(Dedication 3) and we all know Wayne is EVERYWHERE! So this award do belong to him.

  5. Co-sign with this article. Lil Wayne definitely did it up. CMR ran 98-2000 and once again they ran 08, well Wayne this time only.

  6. Definitely got this one right, and the runner up. TI had an amazing year, especially with the singles, but Wayne most def deserves this award hands down. Good shit you guys. And for 3rd, im thinkin The Game.

  7. I hope there is one for lyricist of the year, because if this is it, its definitely not Wayne. But I do have to give it up to him. Even though he’s hip hop’s most overrated album, he got a lot of guest apperances that were nice. Wasn’t feeling his album too much though.

  8. One more thing, you guys do know he’s on alot of rapper’s albums because they don’t have to worry about him outshining them.

    1. @gio305
      The hell you talking about?? Lupe didn’t drop anything big this year(besides one or two tracks), T.I. and Jeezy arent lyricist. You can’t say T.I. and Jeezy(even though I like them both) in the same breath as Nas.

      1. @ DJ LP

        I feel you kinda on that, but it aint no large margin that Nas izz ahead of rest. T.I. dropped some pretty noteworthy bars this year and Jeezy’s usage of wordplay izz bananaz!
        If anything you can say Nas, T.I., and Jeezy in the same breath, jus not the same sentence…

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *