Lil Wayne, Birdman, and Juvenile — three titans of hip-hop with relationships so intertwined and complex that they’ve been at odds with each other off-and-on over the past 20 years. But it looks like the hatchets have finally been buried.
They’ve released a new joint collaboration called “Ride Dat” that doesn’t waste time with reintroductions, saying sorry, or kissing each other asses. It chugs right along talking about sex. It’s nice to see that the three hitmakers haven’t missed a step, even if they haven’t truly given the public apologies that many probably wanted to hear.
“Ride Dat” sounds like the kind of beautiful, luxurious rap that Birdman’s group, Rich Gang, loves to make. It’s mid-tempo, piano-driven rap with drowning 808s. Juvenile briefly references both his falling out with Lil Wayne and Lil Wayne’s beef with Birdman (“We had our issues, our differences, we was sick at once”), but aside from that, this song is about riches and sex.
Juvenile handles the intro, Birdman delivers a stellar foundational verse, and Lil Wayne comes in at the final baton pass, laced with Auto-Tune for a hazy verse full of very Weezyesque punchlines. He sings, very seriously, “I put mula, mula, mula / Over mami chula.” It’s not meant to be the bold first step in a new direction of rap. But it works for what it is — proof that reunions don’t have to be awkward moments.
“Ride Dat” marks the first collaboration between Lil Wayne, Birdman, and Juvenile since 2016’s “Hate.” Lil Wayne and Birdman were embroiled in a feud since 2014, in which Wayne filed a $51 million lawsuit against Cash Money and ended up settling for $10 million, before reconciling in 2018.
Listen to the reunion of the three rap legends up above.
