Entertainment
Lil Wayne
This episode delves into the life of Lil Wayne, tracing his journey from a troubled childhood in New Orleans to becoming a hip-hop icon. It explores the challenges he faced, including violence, person...
Lil Wayne
Entertainment •
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Interactive Transcript
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He's the reigning king of hip hop and has nothing to hide.
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Growing up on the streets of New Orleans, Lil Wayne tried it all by age 11.
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Surrounded by violence, he nearly lost his young life.
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Wayne found salvation in music and as a teen sensation,
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quickly made his mark on pop culture.
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Then he boldly set out on a solo path to start him.
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But Wayne's meteoric rise was fraught with adversity.
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When tragedy struck home, the damage was overwhelming
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and his reckless behavior threatened to destroy him.
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Defiant, Wayne persevered and became one of the biggest stars in all of music.
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Now, hip hop's mad genius turns the mic on himself.
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This is Lil Wayne, the story behind the music.
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It is almost midnight in Newark, New Jersey.
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And a pack-terrina anxiously awaits the arrival of one of music's most popular,
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controversial and enigmatic figures.
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At 27 years old, Lil Wayne is widely regarded as the best rapper alive
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and the hardest working man in show business.
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I always say, my city is the reason for my drive.
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The reason why I'm so motivated to do what I do.
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Because when you're from New Orleans, you gotta do something.
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You gotta do something.
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Lil Wayne was born Duane Michael Carter, Jr. on September 27, 1982
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and raised in Hollywood.
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An impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhood in New Orleans, 17th Ward.
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We grew up in New Orleans home.
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It's just like it is.
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What you see now is what it has always been.
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It's been like a third world of me.
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To live in New Orleans, like for real, for real, you living in the war zone.
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In a skeletal life, a lot of marriage, drugs,
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ain't too many houses in New Orleans, don't have a gun in it.
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Believe me, I'll get out.
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Violence was a part of Duane's life from the very beginning,
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though his parents divorced when he was two.
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His father still remained a looming and abusive presence.
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He forced me and my mom to live with his mom until I was like five.
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But he didn't live there.
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He just would come drop by every other day to beat my mom
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and then leave and leave with his wife.
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Duane and his mother Cita soon moved out on their own
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and he enrolled at Lafayette Elementary.
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There in the school's gifted program, he showed promise as a star student.
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I never understood why people think a school is hard.
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The teacher tells you to find a figure or something out that's actually written down.
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I never got it.
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I just did my work.
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But Duane's true passion was music.
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And by age nine, he was already well on his way to becoming a rapper.
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Dropping the D, he started calling himself Lil Wayne
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and began battling MCs twice as age at local block parties.
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That Duane, he came out normally when he wanted to do another stop.
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Here comes a nine-year-old, grabbing a mic.
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Talking about what this 17 or 18-year-old boy just finished talking about.
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Probably talking about a little better than him.
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To see somebody that small and that young with that much confidence, he used to kill it, man.
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While Wayne's dreams were taking shape in Hollywood,
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a cross town, Brian Baby Williams and his brother Slim,
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were building an up-and-coming rap label.
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Cash Money Records was the biggest label in the city at the time.
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They were like neighborhood superstars.
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They had all the money and the cars, the music, the women.
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There wasn't that big yet.
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But to us, they were big.
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After hearing about Wayne from one of the label's rappers,
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Baby set up a meeting with a nine-year-old outside of a neighborhood record store.
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He was a shortage. He had a pick in his head.
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As I'm looking at him, he wrote a rap to me called, Hollywood Grove, which way he from.
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Man, he was in Hollywood Grove. I don't know where he was headed.
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As he rapping to me, I'm saying to myself, look at this little man.
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Look at him. I'm saying, with some development, we could be something.
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From that point on, Wayne never...
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I just come with me everywhere. I go in and where I went.
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In the summer of 1991, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records,
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and the Williams brothers became his surrogate family.
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When I was able to say I was Cash Money, that was some of the best days ever.
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He wanted to be the best, always.
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And we was the avenue to try and help him fulfill his dream.
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While Baby and Slim schooled Wayne in the art of hip-hop,
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there were some things the sixth grader learned on his own.
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I lost my Virginia when I was 11.
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Hey, I have been...
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I was doing that at 11.
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Yeah, at 11, she was like 13.
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We still cool to this day shot out.
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Yeah.
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Before the year was out, Wayne had also begun experimenting with drugs.
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At 11, man.
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He's lemon for everything. He's lemon with the AIDS.
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He smoked marijuana.
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How you doing, world? Hello.
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Sold marijuana.
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I end up getting high on my own supply.
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And after accidentally discovering a dealer's stash, even tried cocaine.
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We didn't know what it was.
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We were that young. We didn't know if it was dope, coke, crack, ween of blood.
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But it was, we just knew it was white.
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Hey, my mama.
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Kill me.
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At the age of 12, Lil Wayne was already immersed in the chaotic and combustible world of the New Orleans streets.
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But on the afternoon of November 11, 1994,
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this curiosity would have dire consequences.
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My mama ain't get off till late.
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You know, I snoop around the room, find like damn.
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I found a pistol in it.
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A big **** in line. I made a song about it.
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I was in there with my rap ****.
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Got a gun. Music blasted.
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I think it I'm safe.
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Clare around. Then after that.
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Wayne accidentally pulled the trigger and the bullet tore through his chest.
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Layed out on the floor, he crawled to the phone and called 911.
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Four New Orleans policemen responded to the call, including an off-duty officer known as Uncle John.
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Went over to the address, 34-9 Monroe Street.
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Started checking the apartments and we got to his apartment.
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All we could hear was loud music.
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I heard them knocking like somebody in there.
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And I was, because I couldn't scream and nothing like that and say,
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yes, somebody's in here. I got a big **** bullet out of my chest.
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I can't make no noise.
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We knocked hard and loud ourselves and got no response.
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Just beating like hell.
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And then they stopped beating.
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The first thing about my mama, I was always **** dead on the left.
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I was like, they didn't even know I'm in here. I'm a dying.
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So I guess I don't know. I guess something clicks in your head and told me,
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I'd go to the living room. I just lay to the duck on my own black.
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We heard someone moaning inside saying they needed help.
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Well, we went ahead and checked the door in, found little Wayne laying on the ground,
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bleeding from a gunshot wound in the chest.
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He picked me up and he told us whoever was driving, they're behind the wheel now.
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They opened the door for me because I had him in my arms.
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I was carrying him just like a baby.
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He was drifting in and out of consciousness.
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His eyes were drifting backwards into his head.
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Like, looking up at him like, who are you?
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He's now Munko John.
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Just gonna be telling his name while I'm Sunko John.
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I kept talking to him the whole time, trying to keep him awake.
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It's gonna be alright. You know, tell me what happened.
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Trying to just keep him alive.
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On the afternoon of November 11th, 1994,
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12-year-old Wayne Michael Carter, Jr.
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was rushed to a New Orleans hospital with a gunshot wound to his chest.
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That was so small in blood, just was everywhere, sorry about that.
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I don't know how clot is a baby.
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I remember that ****, but then after that, I was out.
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Doctors operated on Wayne and the difference between life and death came down to life.
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It was less than an inch.
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The bullet was this far away from his heart, like a centimeter.
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So away from his heart.
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When straight in, straight out, my angel was watching over him.
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He still got bullet fragments in his chest.
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It's so close to my heart that they can't go there.
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So yeah, I got some pieces out to like two fragments over my heart,
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but they're good, they ain't gonna move and they're **** like that.
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Unless I get in a magnetic field.
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After several days on life support, Wayne eventually recovered.
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And when he returned to his seventh grade class, his brush with death, he came a badge of honor.
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I was walking around that **** with no shirt, and I was too packed.
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You know all the ****.
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Let me see, yo, let me patch you up.
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Because I'ma go to school for nursing, so let me do this.
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You got sympathy and you got the bad boy image at the same time.
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A little more keel eggs for.
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Fully healed, Wayne settled back into life as a star student and aspiring MC.
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He also found stability at home.
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His mother had married a local hustler named Reginald Rabbit McDonald,
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and Rabbit quickly became a pivotal figure in Wayne's young life.
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Rabbit with the first duel to really take him on this and Wayne.
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In teaching things, you know what I'm saying?
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In treating him like a son is my father.
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He was my father that ate my father.
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He didn't look at me as a kid, he took that me as a young man.
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Sadly, Wayne and Rabbit would have only four short years together.
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In the early morning of July 20th, 1997, Wayne's stepfather was shot to death outside of a New Orleans gas station.
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Honestly, I was so young to where it wasn't even cool to cry.
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You know, I was that young.
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It didn't really hit me till the funeral.
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Seeing him, that's when I was like, wow, what is going on.
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But after that, you'd have to be your mom husband.
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You know what I mean?
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You gotta be strong, man.
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Just 14 years old, Wayne dropped out of school to put everything he had into his music career.
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And what was once a dream was now a necessity.
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I know I had to get off my ass and do something.
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As high looked at it straight up, I just looked at like a soldier and I had gone into war.
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Wayne joined forces with three of the best young rappers in New Orleans.
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Juvenile, BG, and Turk to form Cash Money's new group, The Hot Boys.
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The Hot Boys developed a friendly rivalry pushing each other and especially Wayne to new creative heights.
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I used to go in a studio with them and tell them, hey man, you better have your best rhyme or your best rap together because I'm a killin' on the song.
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And that pretty much created a competition between us.
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We used to challenge each other in a good way, you know, in a positive way.
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You know what I'm saying? Like, we was all in anything together.
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The Hot Boys quickly found local success and began touring the South.
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But while Wayne was on the road, his mother Cedar was back home and longing for company.
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The rapper was gone. She had nobody there.
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It just made a broad statement one day.
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Like, when you go bring me a child, a granddaughter, a grandson of her here, I'm bored, but I'm lonely.
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And then one day I was like, you know, like I really, somebody's pregnant.
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And she instead of her being like, what? She was like, yes.
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Wayne's high school girlfriend, Toya Johnson, gave birth in the early hours of November 29, 1998.
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And at 16, Lil Wayne became a father.
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The couple named their daughter Regine in honor of Wayne's stepfather, Rabbit.
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One of the most beautiful days in the world. In my life, I was dead. I saw the nasty-ass.
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It's nasty, man. I saw it, but I was dead. It was beautiful.
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It was also inspiration with another mouth to feed. Wayne helped push the Hot Boys forward.
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And in 1999, they became a national sensation.
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The thing I loved about the Hot Boys was the Hot Boys come together when the boy band thing is at its peak.
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And so the Hot Boys is at once this like gangster rap version of a boy band.
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And it's also this brilliant parody of a boy band because it's so raw.
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While juvenile was the Hot Boys undisputed star, Wayne found a way to make his mark.
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One night in the studio, he made up a word that would change pop culture forever.
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Baby said, Wayne, why don't you catch the end of this song?
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I used to do a little sounds in my verses. I said, man, what sound I could do?
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I was like, tell me what kind of a bling. Wayne started bling, bling, bling. That's his creation.
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At that time, if we had a new better, I'd have copyrighted that sh**.
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Now established as a voice to be reckoned with, Wayne would get a shot at his own solo album.
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The block as Hot was wrote before, you know we even could say like, dude, we working on your album.
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He already had his little raps and whatever to get the gun.
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Just give me a shot, make the beats and get out the week.
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The block as Hot went platinum in a matter of weeks.
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And at 17, the once impoverished MC from Hollywood was already a millionaire.
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My first big check that gave it to my mom, we gave it straight to her.
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The first thing she went to, bought a new house.
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Just now I was able to take care of them.
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And she still could live the way she liked to live. That was enough for me.
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By the turn of the millennium, Wayne and the Hot Boys had become one of Hip Hop's biggest acts.
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But their reign at the top wouldn't last long.
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Disputes over money would break up the group, leaving Wayne on his own.
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Things only got worse when his next solo album failed to meet expectations.
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Just 20 years old, Wayne found himself at a crossroads.
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That was the hardest time where I was really thinking about every day.
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Thinking about the same thing every day.
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I didn't even want to go be with a new company.
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I don't want to keep rapping.
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I ain't no what I want to do.
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Coming up, Wayne faces his moment of truth.
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And then looks into the eye of the storm.
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When behind the music continues.
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It's 3 a.m. and while most of America is fast asleep, Lil Wayne is just getting to work.
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After a three hour concert, a quick meal and a few airings of sports center is ready to start up on a new song.
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After shuffling through some potential tracks, Wayne makes his choice.
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Wayne's daily songwriting process is both simple and eccentric.
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No pens, no paper.
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Just the beat of the music and the thoughts it inspires.
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Wayne's been improvising music like this since he faced the moment of truth in 2002.
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After the hot boys broke up, Wayne's solo career was faltering.
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Convinced that the physical process of writing was constraining his creativity.
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The 21-year-old MC decided to purge himself of all of his written material in one pivotal recording session.
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I said, you know what?
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The only way I won't be able to rap anything I've written again is to record everything I've written all at once.
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So therefore, I have no more written material.
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Armed with a notebook filled with all of his unrecorded lyrics, Wayne entered the booth and let loose.
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You can hear the songs ripping.
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You can hear the pages ripping as he was going through all his last raps and that was the last time.
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You have a road, anything down.
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Wayne emerged from the booth with 10,000 bars, an uninterrupted 35-minute song that would mark the end of an era.
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When I stopped writing, I've noticed that everything was real now.
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I can't speak about nothing but what's real because I can't write nothing down.
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That changed Wayne as an artist.
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He started pouring all his feelings out.
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Everything was on his heart. Everything was in his head. He just started putting it out.
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Reenergized by his new freestyle approach, Wayne released the Carter in 2004.
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It would go on to become a top five hit and put to rest any doubt about the 22-year-old MC and the label he had helped build.
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It was just like, wow, okay, you know, all the haters. Hello.
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Cash money is still here standing and now they have a new star. His name is Wayne and he can hold this label.
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Intent on continuing his musical evolution, Wayne moved to Miami, had began to work with a new range of artists and producers.
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But while he'd found stability in his career, he began to long for it in his personal life.
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I still feel like I need to be with my big mama.
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I mean, like, I need to be with my daughters like at this vital time.
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The choice I made was move to a year and resonate with me and marry to a year.
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On Valentine's Day 2004, Wayne and his high school sweetheart, Toya Johnson, were married.
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I was in love again all that because I felt wow.
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You know, all the feelings of, I guess that I should have felt the day I was watching that give birth.
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I was like, wow, this is the month of my child. Like, you know what I mean, I thought about that then.
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I mean, I was like, will you marry me? So she said, yeah, that's how we did that.
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Wayne and Toya settled into life together.
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But a year later, the city where they first fell in love, would be changed forever.
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On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, destroying almost everything in its path.
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But 800 miles away in Miami, the initial devastation had little impact on Wayne.
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At that time, nothing affected me. I lost some cars in the house.
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300,000 out of house. I got 300,000 out of chains on in the f*** man.
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You gotta understand, I wasn't even there.
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My parents wasn't there and my kid wasn't there.
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So, you know what I mean? So, like, I didn't have to muster up, nothing.
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But in the days that followed, the tragedy began to hit home in ways that Wayne could have never imagined.
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Somebody that's close to us, he was swimming with his little cousin and he died, like right in front of him.
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I was moments in disbelief, like we can't really believe that this just happened.
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Like, we're f***ing calling to be like, no substance like that.
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We're like, we will be hungry.
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And we can't get paid.
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We will.
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What?
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Like, that f***ing killed somebody that had no f***ing for real.
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Wayne's astonishment spurred him into action, but rather than joined celebrity fundraising efforts.
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He returned home and quietly went to work, rebuilding a local park and with cash money,
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helping to feed and clothe those in need.
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You know, I'm from the world.
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I'm related to the people that live in the f***ing.
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I had to help them.
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And I hope in the world.
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Y'all hope in the world get over something that didn't even happen to them.
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Because I don't know anybody in the world as if you think you did it.
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In the aftermath of Katrina and the federal government's controversial response,
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Wayne channeled his emotions into a saw.
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Released on his critically acclaimed mixtape, The Dedication 2,
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he called it Georgia Bush.
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I'm sentimental.
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I never say that I'm hurt, but I was like f***ing cussed.
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I don't have a child, I can't go back to my neighborhood because I'm not a neighborhood.
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I can't go back to my city and say, I remember being five years old having a party here
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because I'm not that animal.
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In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,
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the entire cash money family relocated with Lil Wayne to Miami.
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But the disaster stayed close to their hearts and inspired.
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They went back to work.
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We strong survivage, known to all those people period.
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We can maintain whatever our tradition is during tragedy.
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Even during Hurricane, you still saw people rejoice in this, in the street.
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That's what we do.
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That's what he was taught coming up under baby in a slim like the keep on moving and has to mentality.
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Wayne released the Carter 2 in December 2005.
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And following in the footsteps of his hero Jay Z,
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boldly pronounced himself the best rapper alive.
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Jay Z was kind of in his semi-retirement phase.
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And Lil Wayne said he saw like an empty nation, he was saying, I'm going to be the best rapper alive.
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That's me, I'm the best rapper alive.
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Everybody knows my confidence for music and what I do is through the roof.
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And I believe you're supposed to have this kind of confidence. It's like a sport.
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Nobody is better than me.
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While the Carter 2 went platinum, Wayne still felt he wasn't getting the respect he deserved.
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So he took matters into his own hands.
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Over the next 12 months, he appeared on over 100 songs,
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both through his own underground mix tapes.
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And as a guest rapper for artists, as diverse as Fallout Boy and Fat Joe.
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But true validation came when the phone rang one night.
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And Jay Z was on the line.
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Everybody was like, Clare, everybody was looking at me on the phone.
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He just had a damn me though, just saying some real slick shit like, I see you though.
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I see you though, I see you.
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I know that man though.
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It was like my hero telling me, you're coming for me.
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In Wayne's eyes, he had finally arrived, but it came at a cost.
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His two year marriage to Toya Johnson had fallen apart.
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Toya wasn't ready for what my life was, life is.
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Working every night and working all night.
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I don't plan on stopping this no time zone.
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That's why I had to make the ultimate decision.
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Wayne's divorce from Toya was finalized in January of 2006.
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And on the heels of the painful split, Wayne drew deeper into the world of drugs.
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While he had always been known as a prolific pot smoker,
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rumors began to spread about a possible addiction to prescription cough syrup.
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Syrup is something that any hip-hop fan, especially fan of Southern Hip-hop,
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has to have real mixed feelings about.
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It's inspired a lot of music, but it's also killed a lot of great musicians.
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Drugs were obviously a big part of Wayne's life.
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Probably you would see him with a white styrofoam cup.
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We didn't know for sure, but it seemed like this guy is just constantly taking syrup.
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Me being a friend, I had my opinion about that situation.
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And we just butted on it, you know what I'm saying?
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I'm gonna do what I want, because I do what I want every day.
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Regardless of the urging of friends and family,
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Lil Wayne continued down a path of potential self-destruction.
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Why I know how should I stop drinking whatever it is in my cup?
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I think people need to mind their own business.
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I don't care if it was him, everyone in my cup.
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It's in my cup.
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You.
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Coming up, Wayne's outlaw ways catch up with him.
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When Behind the Music continues.
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On July 22nd 2007, Lil Wayne was set to play his first headlining show in New York City.
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Having recently been arrested for drug possession in Atlanta,
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Wayne's outlaw reputation was on the rise.
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And as he prepared to take the stage,
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Wayne was frisked by police and forced to go through a metal detector.
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Wayne channeled his anger into a memorable performance.
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And when he left the theater several hours later, spirits were high.
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We hop on a bus, we jumpin' up, we sweatin',
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we got a few chicks that flew in, we just amp,
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we'd roll with a block and we'd get pulled over.
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I knew it was about to be quick.
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Somebody was going jail.
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New York police boarded Wayne's tour bus
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and discovered eight ounces of marijuana
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and a loaded 40 caliber pistol.
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Chief, he didn't even know who Wayne was.
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That's crazy.
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That's crazy. He had to ask the young ones,
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which one is Lil Wayne, put the cops on him.
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Although the marijuana was attributed to a member of his entourage,
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Wayne was arrested and charged with two counts of weapons possession.
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However, his camp still contends that the gun was not his.
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Lil Wayne, show me your face, baby.
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Come on, man.
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I don't want to comment too much about it
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because the case is still open.
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I'm saying it's public record that this is, that was mine.
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Wayne, I don't tell any guns or anything.
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The facts of the case are still being argued in court.
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If convicted, Wayne could be facing up to three and a half years in prison.
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I ain't pressed on it.
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I ain't lookin' forward to it. I ain't thinkin' on it.
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And pit of pit of die over one die over.
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And whatever happens, funerable, happenin' for me.
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In the wake of his arrest, Lil Wayne was eager to put the distractions of 2007 behind him.
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And he poured his energy back into his music,
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continuing the flood the streets with mixed tapes.
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Wayne was hotter than ever.
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Wayne was in every nook and cranny and everybody's iPod,
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everybody's CD change, like everywhere you turn,
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Wayne was proven that he was the greatest.
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The only thing people were waiting to see was
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can that transfer to a hit album,
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to him really selling a lot of records
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and selling records the way Pop starts to.
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Wayne's answer was the Carter III.
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Fueled by the raw sexuality of Lollipop,
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both the single and the album, shot to number one.
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More astonishing, in its first week alone,
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the Carter III sold over one million copies.
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We put that record out and it was over.
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1.5 million records in the first week.
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Who's doin' that?
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Eminem's not doin' it.
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Kanye's not doin' it.
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Justin's not doin' it.
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Britney's not doin' it.
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Nobody's doin' it.
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The 1.5 in the first week,
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that was...
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that was...
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I'm just gonna do one 10,000,
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that was just unexplained.
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As the Carter III continued to soar,
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Wayne won the hearts of fans the world over
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and the mainstream media came calling.
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From daytime sports star
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to a primetime Grammy special with Katie Curric,
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Wayne was everywhere all the time,
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gaining even the acknowledgement
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of the biggest star of the year.
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When Obama said that,
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we just looked at each other like, damn,
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we're gonna get in that White House.
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We're gonna get in the White House.
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I remember feel like
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I was that great.
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Because he didn't use me in a sense of a person.
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He used me in a sense of a myth.
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Something that was just impossible.
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In just 12 short months,
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Wayne had transformed himself
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from an eccentric outlaw
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to a cultural phenomenon.
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2008 was low-wing.
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He was the central,
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not just the central dude in hip-hop,
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he seemed like the central pop star of that year.
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In 2008,
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Lil Wayne became hip-hop's undisputed king.
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And on Grammy night 2009,
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America witnessed his coronation.
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Nominated for eight awards,
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Wayne's career would come full circle.
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In a stirring performance
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of his Katrina-inspired anthem,
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Time My Hands,
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Wayne paid tribute to his beloved hometown.
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Then after performing with his idol,
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Jay-Z,
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Wayne went head-to-head against him
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for rap album of the year.
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I don't think I felt like that again in my life yet.
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That was an unexplainable feeling.
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I don't know what that was.
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Wayne would take home four Grammys on the evening,
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sharing his triumph with his mother, Cedda,
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and the father figures
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who had helped lead him on a remarkable journey
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that began at the age of nine.
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That's the best night of my life, man.
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That was joy that you can't explain.
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Just watching it show me how far we can go.
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It ain't about how far we're going to win.
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It's how far we can go.
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You win a Grammy.
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That's like going to the heart of fame.
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I don't care what show I'm on.
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I don't care if they're talking about the news,
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me going to jail.
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It's the Grammy award winning,
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you know what I mean?
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And that right there, I felt like, wow,
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you can't get no moment more better.
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It is long past midnight in Newark, New Jersey,
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and a packed arena has witnessed a superstar in his prime.
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In 27 short years,
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Lil Wayne has already lived a lifetime of tragedy and triumph.
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And while his future remains uncertain,
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one thing is clear.
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He has no intentions of slowing down.
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Well, we come from his very heart,
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from a start all the eyes against you.
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So he just got on his horse and did what he had to do
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to be somebody.
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This was a guy that's pushed down below
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when beyond the boundaries, when beyond the stereotypes.
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He's still growing, you know what I'm saying?
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He's not even at his peak yet, you know what I'm saying?
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He's still rising.
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Everything about me is about music.
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I'm a real artist.
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So a real artist,
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when you give me a canvas,
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and I'll give you art.
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Following the success of the Carter 3,
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Lil Wayne continued his prolific run of album and mixtape releases,
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with multiple mixtapes under the Dedication and No Sealing series,
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as well as the Carter 4 and the Carter 5.
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Even an eight-month jail sentence in 2010
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couldn't stop Lil Wayne from releasing music.
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With the I Am Not a Human Being mixtape released
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while he was in prison,
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and the Carter 4, shortly after his release.
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Despite controversy with his label Cash Money Records,
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Lil Wayne has sold over 120 million records worldwide,
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cementing his status as one of the world's best-selling artists.
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In addition to his own impressive string of albums, mixtapes, and features,
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Lil Wayne helped introduce a new generation of rap artists
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with his record label Young Money,
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including Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Tiger.
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With five Grammy Awards, 11 BET Awards,
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four Billboard Music Awards,
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two MTV Video Music Awards,
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and eight NAACP Image Awards,
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Lil Wayne has cemented his legacy
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as one of hip-hop's greatest.