(June 9, 2025). I’ll admit it: I’m not the target audience for most new hip-hop albums or artists these days. But then again, calling Lil Wayne a “new” rapper in 2025 feels a bit like calling Celine Dion a current pop diva — technically true, but also kind of missing the point. It’s also why I feel like I still know a great new Weezy tune when I hear one.
Wayne, now more than two decades deep into his career and undoubtedly a future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, dropped Tha Carter VI on Friday (June 6), a 19-track opus with a guest list that zigzags from BigXthaPlug and Machine Gun Kelly to Bono and Andrea Bocelli. Yep, that Andrea Bocelli (it feels like only Wayne can pull off “Ave Maria” set to a trap beat).
And yet, despite the album’s sprawling ambition, one track stood out to me so much I’ve been running it on repeat ever since: “Bein’ Myself.”
This is Wayne in full-on self-love mode — part chest-thumping braggadocio, part soulful introspection, and 100% Tunechi. It’s hip-hop’s version of pop’s “My Life,” without the obfuscation of a sugary pop musical bed. It’s also a lyrical flex wrapped in a throwback groove that makes a pretty bold statement: there’s only one Wayne, and he’s not changing for you or anybody else.
Check this chorus:
“I’m just bein’ myself, just bein’ myself
I roll with myself, make peace with myself
I give all of myself, not piece of myself
No starvin’ myself, I eat you myself
Do a song by myself and feature myself
DJ, play nothin’ but me”
By the time he gets to “Do a song by myself and feature myself,” you’re either smirking or nodding along — or both. On other zingers like “Get off my lawn because your lawn chair ain’t a throne yet” and “Before I let you piss me off, I’ll pee on myself,” it’s Weezy letting us know that not only is he the self-proclaimed occupant of the rap throne, but that no one can remove him from it but himself.
But while Wayne’s swagger sells the message, it’s the sample — and the creative partnership behind it — that truly makes this track the standout it is.
For “Bein’ Myself,” Wayne reunites with fellow New Orleans legend and longtime collaborator Mannie Fresh. Together, they crate-dig their way back to 1973 and unearth a little-known Dionne Warwick tune called “(I’m) Just Being Myself.” It’s a deep cut most folks — even diehard Dionne fans — likely missed or simply forgot. But what a find!
That original track came from an overlooked album of the same name (sans the subtitle), a one-off collaboration between Warwick and Motown’s famed Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting/production trio (while the singer was with Warner Brothers Records (after a successful career on Scepter). It marked a crossroads for both parties: Dionne was fresh off her split from legendary songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and H-D-H were five years removed from their Motown heyday and two years from their success with The Honey Cone (“Want Ads,” “Stick Up”). Their 1973 collab with Warwick didn’t exactly set the charts on fire — Just Being Myself peaked at a humble No. 178 on the Billboard 200, and its title track only reached No. 62 on the soul singles chart (the album was Dionne’s first not to generate any Hot 100 singles).
But creatively? The song (and to some degree, the album) slaps — by ‘70s soul standards or otherwise. On “(I’m) Just Being Myself,” Warwick delivers one of her most powerful, emotional vocals of the era. She’s not just singing; she’s commanding, complete with punchy yelps and those strident “hey, hey, hey, hey!” shouts directly sampled on Wayne’s version. Musically, the Bacharach/David baroque-pop sheen is gone, replaced with tribal percussion, fluttering flutes, and stripped-down strings, all of which — at a slightly slowed speed — provide a great backdrop for Weezy’s new track.
But on the original, Dionne at times sounds like a woman inspired, practically proclaiming: “I’m me, and I’m not molding myself to your expectations anymore!” It’s a convincing rebuke to whomever dared try making her anything other than who she was. It’s probably the most “soul” Dionne ever sounded in the ‘70s — with arguably her joint venture with Thom Bell and the Spinners for “Then Came You” a year later being the lone exception.
It’s sad when one realizes that it was only her reduced star status at the time that prevented 1973’s “Just Being Myself” — arguably Dionne at her most raw, most soulful, most defiant — from getting any love. In the hands of a Gladys or an Aretha that year, the song would’ve been a smash!
That Mannie Fresh and Wayne even found this song is a crate-digger’s flex in itself. That they turned it into a contemporary gem is a testament to their ear for buried treasure and their shared reverence for soul music history. I’m just imagining how the creative process went: 56-year-old Mannie finds the track and tells Weezy we’re going to build the whole concept around it — lyrically and musically. And it worked!
So while Tha Carter VI may live or die by the streams and critiques it racks up in the weeks ahead, one thing’s clear: “Bein’ Myself” is the album’s crown jewel. And when Wayne jumps up an octave and leans into that trademark autotuned falsetto on the hook, it’s like even he knows it.
He and Mannie found something special in that old Dionne Warwick tune. And he’s not about to apologize for it.
Or for bein’ himself.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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