Lil Wayne releases his 13th album, Funeral

Lil Wayne dropped his 13th studio album, Funeral, on Friday.

He previously teased a short, orchestra-backed snippet on his Instagram account that featured him singing, “Welcome to the funeral, closed casket as usual.” The post also previewed the album’s artwork. If you flip the image, which features the word “funeral,” upside down, it reads “Lil Wayne.” The record also includes two tributes to Kobe Bryant: the project’s 24-track playlist, and the 24-second moment of silent on track No. 8, “Bing James.”

Funeral follows 2018’s Tha Carter V, though Wayne has kept himself plenty busy since then. He appeared twice on DJ Khaled’s album Father of Asahd, and has been featured on tracks by Lil Pump, Travis Barker, Fat Joe, Dre, 2 Chains, and more.

The rapper even went on tour with Blink-182 last summer, and the collaboration was announced in a video mashing up Wayne’s “A Milli” and the band’s “What’s My Age Again?”

Funeral has been a long time coming, with Wayne first teasing it in 2016, and then saying it would be released toward the end of 2019. He also previously talked about how the album would be different from his previous projects.

“What the new thing is for me is actually trying to put out music that sounds a little more like today’s music,” he told New Orleans radio station Q93.3. “What that means for me… is adding hooks. I forget about hooks. I forget ’em. Somebody gotta come in the booth and stop me from rapping, like, ‘This is where you stop it and add a hook.’”

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