Something great happened last week on The Tonight Show, poor Leno notwithstanding. Camera on musical guest Lil' Wayne, bassist behind him on pasty octaves, some keyboard "funk" preset, really thin till the guitars flange in. This is Alan-born Robin Thicke's "Oh Shooter" they're playing, straight-up, and Thicke, on stage beside Wayne, begins his stick'd-up anthem, his breath caught as it would be near chrome. Tune in then and you'd think Thicke was the star and Weezy just his cough-n-pepper hypeman. "I brought my homeboy with me," says standing Wayne of singing Thicke. He's kidding, right? Technically this is Wayne's song called "Shooter", but the entire "song", down to the track length, is Thicke's original.

What a tense performance so far; music played, but you could probably hear a pin drop. This young New Orleans rapper bouncing around on stage with Real Musicians but not much else, good for a laugh or a breakdance or whatever Other-approved televised woop-de-doo-- "cute" and "rap's not so bad after all" but also "rapping is easy," "rap=only good as the sample it swiped". Wayne was holding us at bay, all our presuppositions about his career, his music, his age and color, his responsibility qua artist post-Katrina. If Thicke's the crybaby here, Wayne's the stick-up kid.

"They want me with my hands up," sings Thicke, doing that stupid "raise the roof" thing. Wayne breaks: "I'm trying to tell you what I am, baby-- listen." And after almost two minutes of no talking he bursts the song open: "So many doubt cos I come from the South, but when I open my mouth the best come out. It's my turn and I'm starting right here today." And so on-- it's one of those black-and-white-to-technicolor moments after which, if you still don't believe in Wayne, you're just lying to yourself.

Granted, Leno won't make "Shooter" Wayne's "song" (it will be though), and we definitely can't call Tha Carter II his coming-of-age album or something equally corny-- people blew that line on the one before. Fact is, Wayne's still young, and he loves that he can get away with shit-- literally. Firmly keeping a foot in the sandbox, Wayne dabbles scatological throughout ("Dear Mr. Toilet/ I'm the shit"), sometimes even elaborately so ("You niggas small bubbles, I burp you/ I'll spit you out and have your girls slurp you"). Total energy thing, his verses still lack polish and a good edit (e.g. so many goddamn shark jokes), and his skits and "personality raps" (cf. "Grown Man") spell him out too bluntly, too vainly. And yet, there's "Shooter", or "Receipt", or "Get Over": "Standin' on stage in front of thousands/ Don't amount to me not having my father." Lines like this fall outta nowhere, jaw-droppers aplenty-- but "don't forget the baby".

People who met Wayne on "Go DJ" and thought him a lunchroom hack emcee-- who knows what's happened since then, but damn has he learned how to write. His squeak is now a croak, his laugh a little more burly, his flow remarkably flexible. Sometimes he's deliberate like syrup cats ("But this is Southern, face it/ If we too simple then yall don't get the basics") but when he needs to be, he's nimble as that Other Carter: "I ain't talking too fast you just listening too slow." Remy and weed, fast things and women, the corner-- these are Wayne's wax since B.G.'ing with B.G., putting piff on the campus before he ever enrolled in college.

What's different, and crucial: no Mannie Fresh electro-dixie beats. Free from Fresh, Wayne is less a novelty-- less Pinocchio on Pleasure Island (cf. 500 Degreez), less that dorm-room poster of the baby giving the middle finger. In fact, no-name nawlins producers run the boards, their crackly soul sampling and that implied return-to-rap roots a perfect complement to Weezy's raspy, sometimes even Miles Davisian voice. On "Receipt", which lifts the Isleys' "Lay-Away", Wayne's nursery rhyme delivery grants pick-ups like "my daughter want another/ Sister or brother/ And you looking like a mother" that rare smooth-crude game, something a young Curtis Jackson wanted out of "Best Friend" but didn't quite get.

"I'm a self-made millionaire, fuck the public," he says on "Money On My Mind." To an extent, he's right. This is Wayne's show, the album's only guests being Kurupt and Birdman and some r&b b-girls. Not to say he's ungrateful; it's just that establishing his autonomy, his don't give a fuck, is infinitely more important. Lead track "Tha Mobb" really lays the audience/methodology/goals stuff on thick: For five minutes, no chorus, sad piano, he does it for "the gangstas and the bitches, the hustlers and the hos." Crossover? "Whatever." Mainstream? "No!" He refuses to be a Big artist, precisely so he can be a big Artist.

Shirking responsibility then? Katrina happened after most these tracks were cut, so let's not be assholes. He worked in a few rhymes after the fact, very simple stuff like "gotta get the hood back after Katrina" on "Feel Me". But the line that follows is more telling: "Weezy F. Baby, the 'F' is for 'FEMA'." FEMA, that lark, and so goes his point: For relief, he's not responsible. While Wayne hasn't made Tha Carter II a "Katrina album" in the obvious respect (cf. that horrendous "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" song rock critics like because they "get" it), he's given New Orleans something much greater-- someone, one of their own, to believe in. "If I talk it I walk it like Herschel," he says on "Mo Fire", his syllables out his mouth like smoke rings-- he means sex, other things too.