Has your intense love for 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” begun to dwindle? Do you think there should be even more hip-hop songs written around candy-based sexual metaphors? Well I have good news for all three of you who answered yes to both questions: Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” has all the derivative lyrics and sugary beats you crave, and it’s got that cool vocoder effect that T-Pain always uses. Now isn’t that swell?

The video for “Lollipop,” the first single off long-awaited LP “Tha Carter III,” begins high over the city of Las Vegas. The camera quickly zooms in, bringing the viewer through the city’s skyline right into Lil’ Wayne’s hotel room, where he stands looking at himself in the mirror and making sure he’s ready for a night on the town. Once his hair looks just right and he’s collected a good variety of dice-shaped lollipops, Wayne moves on to the lobby, where he’s congratulated by Static Major on his fine choice of accessories.

They then board some sort of Mack Truck limousine, on which they are met by several fine women and a relentless strobe light. Again, the two friends congratulate themselves on being such ballers. The video then becomes a montage of Las Vegas scenery, high stakes poker, and the two rappers dancing by a pool. To cap off Lil’ Wayne’s Kojak-inspired night, each woman is shown laid out on a bed of lollipops.

But no matter how many women or how much money and candy Lil’ Wayne manages to flaunt, the video can’t overcome the awful song that accompanies it. The song’s lyrics are absolutely pathetic, reaching their intellectual peak with the double entendre “I let her lick the (w)rapper.” The only line in the song that doesn’t include a rap cliché is just as bad: “When I’m at the bottom / She like Hillary Rodham.”

No one expects Lil’ Wayne to be a traditional lyricist, but there’s no excuse for such an abomination of a song, especially when he borrowed its core concept from another artist. However, I’m pretty sure that “The Best Rapper Alive” won’t make this drop in quality a permanent thing. Let’s just hope that when the lollipops are gone, Lil’ Wayne will stop sucking.

—Jeff W. Feldman