Early life
"I always
believe that to be the best, you have to smell like the best, dress like the
best, act like the best. When you throw your trash in the garbage can, it has
to be better than anybody else who ever threw trash in the garbage can."
by Lil Wayne
In 1982, a
future rap star born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Lil Wayne (Dwayne Michael
Carter, Jr.) grew up in a divorced family with his 19 years old mother. His
father abandoned the family after the divorce, which later on, Lil Wayne
preferred people to call him Wayne instead of Dwayne because his father is not in his life and
will never be. Harsh childhood encouraged Lil Wayne to be outstanding and
unique. He recorded his first rap song at the age of eight and met rapper Bryan
Williams to enlighten his music life. Lil Wayne decided to drop out of the school as
he became a professional rapper.
Music career in the '90s
"I'm not an
example for how people should live their lives. Never in my life would I ever
set out to be an example for people on how to live their lives. If you need an
example for how to live, then you just shouldn't have been born. Straight up."
by Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne joined
the Hot Boys in the age of fifteen as the youngest member in the group. He began his hip hop
career with the Hot Boys and released many tracks that were voted to be on the
Billboard Hot 100, which is considered pretty successful for a young teenager
in his early music career. Several years after being a “rookie” in the rap
industry, Lil Wayne’s first debut solo album, The Block Is Hot, was released when he was seventeen. The album was so popular that the Source magazine awarded Lil Wayne to
be the “Best New Artist”. But unfortunately, Lil Wayne’s second and third albums did not reverberate the rap fans because the maturity and the quality of his rap songs still had not reached his fellow Hot Boys members…
Climax of his
music career
"I don't think
life is about a pace, living slow or fast. I think you just live, y'know what I
mean?"
by Lil Wayne
In the summer of 2004, Tha Carter was released. Rap fans would say, by releasing this album, Lil Wayne became the
musical fashion trend. Not only the unique vocal style, husky sounds, but also
his now-signature outlook, the dreadlocks, became the new significant recognition
of Lil Wayne and hip hop culture. Becoming a household rap star, Lil Wayne was named to be the
president of Cash Money Records, a hip-hop record label founded in 1991. Despite
how successful Tha Carter was, Lil Wayne reached his hip hop fans through
mixtapes with other singers instead of follow up another solo album for the next two years. Between
his two years musical life as a featured performer, Lil Wayne participated in
many musical works that vocalized some social consciousness. For instance, the
track “Georgia Bush” critiqued the former president’s responses to the disaster of Hurricane Katrina on the people of the United States.
Personal life
"I like being
misunderstood."
by Lil Wayne
In 2007, Lil Wayne was arrested because the police discovered him smoking
marijuana near the bus station illegally and later on discovered a pistol in his bag.
Lil Wayne was expected to receive a one-year jail sentence, but the decision
was delay through his "teeth surgery" and the basement fire in the courthouse. In
May 2010, Lil Wayne was sentence to a year in jail on Rikers Island. Despite of
illegally possessing a weapon, smoking weed and cigarettes on one hand, is Lil
Wayne’s own willingness, but on the other hand, smoking could also put certain
amount of pressure on his channel that auto-tunes his voice naturally. Smoking makes Lil Wayne’s rap unique. People might argue his
imprisonment of doing drugs is what he deserves, but on the contrary, isn’t smoking
somehow makes Lil Wayne’s rap so perfect and unique because of his husky and raspy voice?
Down fall of Lil Wayne
"Honestly, I
don't listen to nobody else's music but my own. It's kind of like sports to me.
You don't see Kobe Bryant at a LeBron James game - he just works on his own
game. And that's what I do. I only listen to me, so I can criticize and analyze
and all those things."
by Lil Wayne
It is impossible to watch Youtube videos without seeing the comment “This
is better than Lil Wayne” now a day. People might say: “obviously, Drake is
always better than Lil Wayne, but how in the world can Lil Wayne gets more shit
than any hip hop singers can?” For a rapper who had his debut album at the age of
17, Lil Wayne is often overlooked by the people as a significant element of
modern hip hop. People believe Lil Wayne is no longer able to produce rap songs
like “lollipop” or “A Milli” because people expected from him too much after
his incredible mixtape albums like Tha Carter III, but when we listen
carefully to his current rap songs, that energetic and unique rhythm is still there. We
can say that people are no longer interesting on worshiping Lil Wayne, but we can never deny his
contribution to the hip hop world.
Lil Wayne - 6 foot 7 foot ft. Cory Gunz
Lil Wayne - Lollipop ft. Static
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