Lil Wayne’s “Special Ops” Adds a New Record to the Week’s Rap Lineup

Lil Wayne wears dark sunglasses and a suit beside green stadium seats from the “Special Ops” artwork.

Lil Wayne’s “Special Ops” gives hip-hop listeners a fresh record to carry out of the August release rush. The song arrived August 28, 2026, through Young Money Records, with Republic Records handling distribution. Its official audio is available on Wayne’s YouTube artist channel, making the full track—not just a circulating snippet—the starting point.

The credits put Manny G, Swede, and Ethan First on production. Manny G also handles programming, recording, and mixing, while Colin Leonard is credited with mastering. Wayne is the listed vocalist; the songwriting credits name Dwayne Carter, Manny Galvez, Roberto Curti, and Ethan James First.

That production breakdown offers something more useful than a generic new-single announcement. It identifies the team behind the recording and separates the different jobs involved in bringing it to listeners. The finished track runs four minutes and 41 seconds in the official player, leaving room for a full listen before choosing a favorite moment.

Wayne’s catalog supplies plenty of context for that listening session. “Tha Carter III,” released in 2008, carried “Lollipop,” “A Milli,” and “Got Money”; his album history also includes “Tha Carter VI” in 2025. Those records are part of why a new Wayne release invites comparisons across different eras of his career, not simply across one week’s new songs.

A worthwhile first-listen question is what catches your ear before the track ends: the writing, the vocal delivery, or the production. Then play it again without the distraction of a short clip or someone else’s ranking. For an artist with this much catalog behind him, the comparison can be personal—there is no single era every listener has to use as the benchmark.

Hear “Special Ops” in the official audio player below; the release carries an explicit-lyrics warning. You can also revisit PowerPage’s August 28 New Hip-Hop Friday lineup for more of the week’s music. Wayne’s latest adds another complete record to that conversation, with the credits and the full performance available for listeners to explore.

Listen: Lil Wayne — “Special Ops” (official audio)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxTTuDl6ztI