Lil Wayne is the Prince of the 21st century - a thought-provoking, at times controversial music figure who seemingly exists outside of the parameters that typically restrains mere mortal performers. Lil Wayne tickets are on sale for his I Am Still Music tour on the eve of the release of Tha Carter IV and he has quickly gone to work creating enough buzz on the Internet to bump up the sale of both the concert tickets and the album.

Performing at the MTV Video Music Awards, he tried to remind us that he sees himself as three beings, an R&B singer, a rapper, and a rock god. Lil Wayne came out with an auto-tuned ballad, a high-energy hip hop track, and a guitar solo. Now, he is not a musician for everyone. Some may be turned off by his auto-tuned attempt at R&B and others may be wondering why he even bothered to pick up the guitar if he was not going to learn to play the instrument, but no one can deny the frenzy he created within the building as he transitioned into “John”.

The backing band brought the rock and the performer brought the energy and bleeped out lyrics that will surely go down as one of the best performances from the 2011 MTV VMAs. Lil Wayne did more than impress the crowd with his antics, he also made a fashion statement, wearing ladies jeggings that crept down his legs to expose blue underwear. His PR team reported that the unique personality often wears Tripp jeggings, taking his crossover status as a hipster to new levels.

I am sure he will now be forced to don this fashion statement for at least a few concert dates on his tour. I often wonder just what kind of mix those performances draw. How does the hipster contingent mingle with the Hip Hop fans? How did both groups react to the gang-related stabbing at the Lil Wayne concert in Albuquerque? How did those two react to the less than stellar review of Tha Carter IV?

Music Week may expect the album to top the Billboard 200 charts with sales around 900,000 (the second biggest opening sales week of the year), but critics have been less than impressed. The New York Times Jon Caramanica rips his latest offering for its inability to follow through with coherent lyrics, instead focusing on crazy set-up and punch line delivers like a rapping Don Rickles with the imagination of a very sexually active kindergartener.

Lil Wayne has always delivered just what the audience has wanted, the Hip-hop world’s own Joker, a caricature of a mentally unhinged personality that should only exist in comic books. He runs the danger of one day have his antics overshadow his music someday, but right now he appears to be the perfect combination of artist and PR machine.