That incarnation of Wayne seems long gone. It’s not a fully formed album, but neither does it resurrect the fabled Best Rapper Alive who lit up the mid-2000s DatPiff market with his Drought and Dedication serials. In this light, its lasting impression is less as a cogent full-length than as a marketing device - or something to tweet about. Officially, FWA has been released through the Tidal streaming music service, of which Weezy is now a co-owner. The unsatisfying sequencing and an abundance of sappy hooks (bye, Jake Troth) plagues FWA throughout, like when the relationship rap of “Psycho” segues uneasily into the eerie, Junior Reid-aided “Murda.” Listening to FWA start-to-finish is a bemusing experience as the mood shifts erratically, casting it as a badly formatted playlist. The perky “I Feel Good” samples the James Brown song of the same name and suggests a celebration, but is followed incongruently by the introspective “My Heart Races On,” which finds Wayne touching on police brutality (“They already killed enough of us”). What ensues instead is an uneven grab bag that quickly goes awry and fails to cohere. “Rest in peace to the Cash Money Weezy / Gone but not forgotten,” he Auto-Croons on the latter track, teasing that he’s about to launch into a creative rebirth. The 15-track collection begins brightly and on-point: Opener “Glory,” and its melodramatic follow-up, “He’s Dead,” set a resolute tone as they detail Lil Wayne’s newfound freedom. On the heels of its similarly uneven 2015 companion, Sorry 4 the Wait 2, this more promising and (comparatively) fired-up Tidal exclusive still dwindles into a tepid zone and potentially puts to death the myth of Mixtape Weezy. But despite a provocative title that suggests he’s hitting back at his former allies, FWA - or Free Weezy Album - isn’t so much a statement of independence as Just Another Mixtape. Lil Wayne’s whopping $51 million lawsuit against the label is the latest case of revolt, this time with Weezy likening himself to a prisoner and claiming his long-delayed Tha Carter V album is being held back from release. Cash Money is an army - but Baby and Slim’s New Orleans venture has always been afflicted by disgruntled soldiers, going back to early-‘90s acts like UNLV, members of the Hot Boys, and even their in-house producer, Mannie Fresh.