The Weezer frontman speaks with Pitchfork on collaborating with Lil Wayne.

Pitchfork: So Lil Wayne is on the Raditude track “Can’t Stop Partying”. How did that come about?

Rivers Cuomo: It might be my favorite track on the album. It was an epic process coming up with it between me, [co-writer] Jermaine Dupri, and [producer] Polow Da Don– and then Lil Wayne topped it off with this rap from the edge of the grave.

Pitchfork: Were you actually in the studio with Wayne?

RC: No, I’ve never met him. I’d love to.

Pitchfork: Why did you specifically want him instead of another rapper?

RC: He sounds like he’s totally insane– and not just for the sake of sounding crazy. He’s not trying to sound ghetto or gangsta or intellectual– he’s just very natural and weird.

The first time I really became aware of him was when he worked the Ninja Turtles into the song “Kush”. Let me look up the lyrics online. … Ok, he says, “I feel like I’m racing a bunch of little turtles/ Keep a bandana like the Ninja Turtles.” First of all, he rhymes “turtles” with “turtles,” which is crazy! Second, he pronounces “turtles” with this real hard “R” so he sounds super nerdy, which is something you don’t often hear from black rappers. Third, he references the Ninja Turtles! That’s another thing you don’t often hear.

Pitchfork: You guys are kind of like kindred spirits in a super weird way.

RC: Well, you’ve got the Weezer/Weezy connection. But, more importantly, he really tapped into the spirit of the song, which I really struggled with at first. There was no sense of irony or darkness or tension in the first draft I heard from Jermaine. It was purely “whoo-hoo, let’s drink, get stoned, and get it on,” which is a fine sentiment, but I couldn’t honestly put that out and have it be the end of the story. So I ended up turning the music into something dark and beautiful and haunting, which gave it a different meaning without changing the lyrics. Lil Wayne picked up on that and developed it with his rap.

Pitchfork: What’s he rapping about?

RC: I have his verse memorized, it’s so great. He’s rapping about how you can’t stop mixing drugs and alcohol, but there are a few words he chooses which are surprising and suggest a terrible end to the party. The last line is: “I hope the killer doesn’t take the life of the party.”

Previous: Weezer Team Up With Lil Wayne For “Can’t Stop Partying”

By now, you are probably aware that on Weezer’s upcoming Raditude album (a.k.a. “the one with the dog on the cover”), frontman Rivers Cuomo has decided to shake things up, working with the All-American Rejects’ Tyson Ritter and Nick Wheeler, Butch Walker and super-producer Dr. Luke.

But the shaking didn’t stop there. Perhaps taking a cue from Girl Talk or millions of amateur mash-up auteurs out there, Cuomo has recruited none other than Lil Wayne to contribute a verse to a song on the album.

“Weezer is always trying something new,” Cuomo told MTV News. “Last year, we put out The Red Album. We loved that album, but this is 2009. It’s time to do something totally different. So I reached out to some friends of mine in different genres: Jermaine Dupri, for example, king of R&B, I wrote a song with him called ‘Can’t Stop Partying.’ It was a real challenge for me, taking his ideas, which are very slick, R&B party [ideas], and giving it some kind of edge, some darkness, making it work with rock, making it work with Weezer.

“Not only that, but we got Lil Wayne to come in and do a rap on it,” he continued. “Any other rapper would’ve just done, ‘Yay, we’re partying! Let’s drink and have fun,’ but he gave it the edge I was looking for. You can hear in his voice, it sounds so dark, like he was gonna get shot or something when he walks out of the studio. So I was real happy that everyone involved got what we were going for.”

While a Weezer/Weezy collabo does seem a bit odd, it’s keeping in theme with Raditude’s party-hearty ethos. And it’s not like Wayne is new to the rock game, either. Last year, he appeared on Fall Out Boy’s Folie à Deux, and then there’s his much-delayed “rock” album, Rebirth, which is set to be released in December.

Shouts to MTV. What are your thoughts on this collaboration ❓