** Lil Wayne

THA BLOCK IS HOT

(Cash Money)

You can't call Lil Wayne's debut album overproduced without sounding foolish. After all, the New Orleans-based label Cash Money (also home to Lil Wayne's group, the Hot Boy$) has made a virtue of excess with a series of flashy, gimmicky, ultra-disposable hit singles.

But even by these decadent standards, Tha Block Is Hot lays it on a bit thick. The 15-year-old Wayne is often drowned out by keyboards, and his high-pitched drawl echoes around the beat like a talking drum. Sometimes, this works to terrific effect: when Wayne shouts "Come on! Come on! Come on, nigga!", his voice is nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding gunshots and video-game noises; and "Enemy Turf" adds labelmate Juvenile's rubber-cement vocals, an acoustic guitar, and some faux steel drums to Cash Money's trademark double-speed breaks. On the other hand, the gloomy "Watcha Wanna Do" is tedious, and "High Beamin' " is a woozy DJ Quik knockoff. By the time he's done, Lil Wayne has produced a horrid entry in the Latin-pop sweepstakes, Cash Money's first ballad (it's not nearly as bad as you'd think), and a baffling motivational number called "Up to Me" (over a schmaltzy keyboard bed and a brisk beat, the rapper tells himself, "It's up to you, Wayne/Stay up and keep it real"). Most rap albums are destined to sound kind of silly in a few years, but this one sounds kind of silly right now: Cash Money has taken planned obsolescence to a whole new level.

-- Kelefa Sanneh