Photo by Brian Chilson.


Lil Wayne
Verizon Arena, Jan. 9

Lil Wayne may be the best rapper alive, but that doesn’t mean he can charge $51 (or $66 or $76 for premium seats) in Arkansas and expect much of a crowd. Only 3,200 people showed up on Saturday — a little more than a fifth of what promoters were hoping for. But if Wayne was troubled by the empty seats — or his imminent prison stint — he hid it deep behind dark shades and a bejeweled grin that didn’t leave his face for almost two hours.

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What a difference three years makes. Last time Wayne came to Central Arkansas, he shared a bill, at Christmas Crunkfest at Barton Coliseum, with Young Jeezy and T.I., and spent his time on stage bobbing and weaving, barely lifting his voice past his hype men and reference track. Saturday, he stalked the stage like someone who’d spent his childhood in musicals (I counted at least two jump-and-heel-kicks) and rapped, sans backing track, with the same kind of manic energy that makes his recorded work so essential.

But like so much of that studio output, for all its inspired wackiness, Wayne’s live show occasionally shifted from weird-fun to weird-dumb. Everything that involved “rocking out” ranged from just plain terrible to not good. Mercifully, he only “sang” and “played guitar” (think: a 12-year-old testing out an amp for the first time) on two songs — the trainwreck “Rebirth” singles “Prom Queen” and “She’s On Fire.” But through all of his opening set, his four-piece backing unit stayed in full Body Count mode. Which meant that songs like “A Milli” and “Got Money” got the by-the-numbers hard rock remix treatment and Wayne had to compete to be heard with a guitarist doing a bad Eddie Van Halen impression.

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