Lil Wayne, byname of Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., also called Weezy, (born September 27, 1982, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.), American rapper who became one of the top-selling artists in hip-hop in the early 21st century.
Lil Wayne grew up in New Orleans’s impoverished 17th Ward. There he came to the attention of Cash Money Records head Bryan Williams, and he soon became a member—with Juvenile, B.G., and Turk—of the label’s all-star group Hot Boys and won notice for the albums Get It How U Live! (1997) and Guerrilla Warfare (1999). Lil Wayne’s first solo LP, Tha Block Is Hot, arrived later in 1999 and sold more than a million copies, but two subsequent releases, Lights Out (2000) and 500 Degreez (2002), were less popular with the public.
Lil Wayne found a new avenue to success in 2003 with Da Drought, his first solo mixtape. (Within the context of early 21st-century hip-hop, the term mixtape typically referred to a recording produced and distributed outside official music-industry channels, often as a free Internet download.) He also founded that year Young Money Entertainment, a record label that would eventually release numerous hits by Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj. His 2004 album Tha Carter reached number five on the Billboard 200 chart and spawned a hit single, “Go D.J.” During this time Lil Wayne came into his own as an artist, with lyrics that were both profound and clever and that spoke to a wide range of people. His contribution in 2004 to the single “Soldier” (by Destiny’s Child) was among the first of many guest performances with other artists that attracted wider attention to his distinctive gravelly drawl and his skillful flow. While continuing to build his reputation through mixtapes and collaborations, Lil Wayne released the critically praised album Tha Carter II (2005), which sold more than one million copies.
In 2008 more than a million copies of Tha Carter III, which contained the ubiquitous singles “A Milli” and “Lollipop,” were sold in its initial week of release in the United States. By the end of December, it had sold more than 2.8 million, which made it the country’s best-selling album of the year. In February 2009 he took home Grammy Awards for best rap album, best rap song, best rap solo performance, and best rap performance by a duo or group; the latter award was for the song “Swagga like Us,” on which he performed alongside Jay-Z, T.I., and Kanye West.
Later that year Lil Wayne pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of a weapon; the charge stemmed from a 2007 incident in which a loaded gun was found on his tour bus. In February 2010, a month before being sentenced to prison, he released the rock-influenced album Rebirth, which was met with largely unfavourable reviews. The subsequent I Am Not a Human Being (2010), released while he was in jail (he ultimately served eight months of a one-year sentence), was stylistically more consistent with his previous work and was better-received.
Lil Wayne debuted the single “6 Foot 7 Foot” in late 2010, several months before embarking on a North American tour with Nicki Minaj and Rick Ross. The full-length follow-up to I Am Not a Human Being was slow to materialize, however, and its release date was pushed back multiple times. Lil Wayne acknowledged those delays with his Sorry 4 the Wait mixtape, and he remained a presence on the hip-hop scene as a frequent guest vocalist. In August 2011, after a boisterous performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, he released Tha Carter IV, which featured guest performances by John Legend, Busta Rhymes, and OutKast’s Andre 3000. I Am Not a Human Being II followed in 2013. By then, some critics had begun to suspect that Lil Wayne’s creative peak was behind him, although he remained a vital commercial force.
An expected album release in 2014 failed to materialize amid disagreements between Lil Wayne and Cash Money Records. The dispute was exacerbated by the appearance in 2015 of the mixtape Sorry 4 the Wait 2. Lil Wayne then joined the music-streaming service TIDAL, through which he released the mixtape Free Weezy Album. It was not until 2018, after the artist and Cash Money Records parted ways, that the long-anticipated Tha Carter V finally appeared, to generally favourable reviews and with his usual commercial appeal. Funeral (2020) was Lil Wayne’s fifth album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 chart. In 2020 he also pleaded guilty to illegally taking a handgun and ammunition on a private plane. He was expected to receive up to 10 years in prison, but, shortly before his sentencing in January 2021, he was pardoned by Pres. Donald Trump.
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