Published at 9:58 AM on June 16, 2008

By Michael Saba

Al Sharpton and Lil Wayne trade blows over Tha Carter III

Things are looking up for Dwayne Carter. He's one of the hottest acts in the rap game right now, and the recently-released Tha Carter III is projected to be one of the biggest-selling albums of the year. And for good reason: with singles like "A Milli" and "Mr. Carter," Wayne has proven he's earned his position in hip-hop's pantheon. The album has its curiosities though, like final track "Don'tGetIt", an epic 10-minute diss where Wayne stops rapping about 3 minutes in and waxes philosophic on race relations, drug sentencing, the dismal state of education in America and political figureheads like Al Sharpton.

Wayne tears into Sharpton for almost three minutes with the kind of vitriol you'd expect between Nas and Jay-Z (or at least 50 Cent and The Game). "You see, you are no MLK. You are no Jesse Jackson. You are nobody. To me. You're just another Don King. With a perm," Wayne snickers. Sharpton was quick to respond, and issued his first response exclusively to Current's The Fix:

“While some of the rappers don’t like the fact that Rev. Sharpton has been leading marches against the use of the N, B, H words and NAN’s stance against the degradation of women in music, a Gallup poll released last week revealed that Rev. Sharpton has a 50% approval rate among African Americans. So why dignify a response to one rap artist who doesn’t even say anything substantive?”

Yikes. When you've got two people like Wayne and Sharpton who have built their careers on controversy, the only possible outcome of a fight like this is enough beef to choke the Wu-Tang Clan. Still, this does mean that we'll be able to look forward to a Wayne/Sharpton collab track five years down the line. Hopefully auto-tune will still be en vogue, because what could be cooler than Sharpton dropping rhymes like T-Pain?

Related links:
News: Lil Wayne rocks summer shows as Tha Carter III looms
Blender: The Great Lil Wayne Debate
LilWayne-Online.com

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