Lil Wayne and Rock = Vietnamese Food?

Alright, I've kept my peace on this long enough.

What's it like to ascend to the very top of your genre, declare yourself the greatest in that respective genre, and then switch genres?

Few people can give you an answer on that, save for Lil Wayne.

The mini-rapper extraordinaire's rock album, Rebirth, is still weeks away from a tentative June 23 release, but the piecemeal offerings that have trickled out from the LP in recent weeks all point to one thing.

Doom.

Miss Limp Bizkit? Can't get enough Linkin Park and Kid Rock? Still waiting for a Faith No More reunion? Don't everybody jump up at once.

That's what Wayne's first single from the album, titled "Prom Queen," sounds like. If you were to drop several forks in a trash compactor and ask your 12-year-old brother to play his first guitar solo, you might have an idea.

You can understand my trepidation.

Rolling Stone is reporting that at least one of the tracks will shoot for an old-school Beastie Boys sound. The Beasties were one of the few groups that managed to pull off rap-rock. Let's hope that carries through the rest of Rebirth.

Just months ago, Wayne was topping the world with Tha Carter III, one of the most potent hip hop records from the last decade. The singles were unforgettable and the album tracks were brilliantly subversive.

No doubt it takes stones to switch it up when you're at the top of your game. Kudos to Weezy for the stones.

But that doesn't mean we have to like it, and according to Wayne's manager, "He don't care."

This isn't the first time a rap star believed he could fly. Check out Tupac in 1994's "Above the Rim" to see Tupac act like, well, Tupac.

Red Man and Method Man soon followed suit, while Kanye West released his soul record, 808s and Heartbreak, last year. Kanye sings and he sounds not unlike a drowning goat!!

Still, maybe Rebirth will be awesome.

If I ruled out everything based on the first taste, I never would have liked beer, wine, vodka or Vietnamese food. Let's cross our fingers and hope that Wayne's latest is like Vietnamese food.

- SoR