Pitchfork

There's a new quasi-live video of Lil Wayne doing "Gossip", one of the two best songs from Christmas Day's The Leak EP. Filmed by Matt Alonzo in San Diego at the House of Blues, the clip mostly uses audio from the relatively staid studio version, although it cuts out the recording to let Weezy rasp a slow, deliberate, a cappella rendition of the track's best verse, with the audience rapping along: "I graduated from hungry and made it to greedy/ My flow is like pasta, take it and eat it/ But I'ma need cheese if I'm bakin' a ziti." Before that, we can see the New Orleans rapper holding forth in wifebeater shirt and backwards cap, pointing to his head when the "think it over" hook from whatever version of "Stop! In the Name of Love" goes around. Nothing will top Wayne's vehement performance premiering the song for the world at last year's BET Hip-Hop Awards, but good luck finding an uncensored clip of that version that some lawyer won't eventually get taken down. Not sure how BET founder Bob Johnson finds time to e-mail YouTube when he's so busy fighting drug use and all. When you see him, tell him Weezy's hip-hop.

[from The Leak EP; out now on Cash Money/Universal]