Lil Wayne rocks summer shows as Tha Carter III looms

In the midst of a number one Billboard single, a revenge-based Internet leak of his insanely hyped new album and nights up answering your love queries for VH1's "Ask Weezy" feature, Lil Wayne kicks off his newest batch of summer tour dates tomorrow in Connecticut.

And yes, Tha Carter III leaked last weekend, just under a week and a half before its release date this coming Tuesday (June 10). This is pretty par for the course with major-rap releases, and even surprisingly late in the game for a Weezy album given the normal quota of leaks and bootlegs associated with his recent work. But as you might know, Wayne has taken some issue with leaks in the past. Hopefully this one won't cause him to go back to the lab and go even more Chinese Democracy on us than he already has. After all, he only has so much time if the world really ends in 2012 when the Mayan calendar runs out as he says it does.

As far as we know though, the leak is the real deal, weird tattooed baby album cover and all.  And as you might expect, the Internet  is abuzz. Some of the most interesting writing thus far comes from Tom Brelhan of the Village Voice, who  has divided the album into three days at around five track-by-track reviews each day in his "Picking Apart Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III" blog feature series.

There have been many questions and mysteries surrounding the new Carter offering, but the official answers will have to wait until Tuesday. As Wayne raps midway through the album, "This is history in the making, so shut up and let me make it."

For now, here are those tour dates:

June
7 - Bridgeport, Conn. @ Harbor Yard
8 - Atlantic City, N.J. @ House of Blues
10 - Baltimore, Md. @ 1st Mariner Arena
11 - Chicago, Ill. @ House of Blues
12 - San Jose, Calif. @ HP Pavilion
15 - San Diego, Calif. @ House of Blues
16 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ House of Blues
20 - Fresno, Calif. @ Selland Arena
27 - Lafayette, La. @ Cajundome
28 - Sunrise, Fla. @ Bank Atlantic Center

July
12 - Grand Prairie, Texas @ Nokia Theatre (K104 Summer Jam)
12 - Shreveport, La. @ Hirsch Memorial Coliseum

August
10 - Baltimore, Md. @ Pimlico Race Course (Virgin Mobile Festival)

Related links:
Lil Wayne on MySpace
New York: Is Lil Wayne's "Comfortable" the song of the summer?
Pitchfork: Da Drought 3 record review

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