Lil Wayne Sounds Off on Black Lives Matter, New Rappers, & 'Tha Carter V'
Lil Wayne may not be able to release his long-awaited album Tha Carter V, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to be silent.
Not only did he just release his prison diary Gone ‘Til November: A Journal of Rikers Island, but Weezy was also outspoken in an interview with The New York Times, in which he opened up about his Cash Money dispute and whether he sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
“I do,” he says. “I don’t have to even look. I’m gonna make sure that there’s light. If there’s a wall at the end of the tunnel, I’m gonna shoot that [expletive] down. And there’s gonna be light behind that wall.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Wayne opened up about his recent collaborations with Chance the Rapper (“No Problem”) and Solange (“Mad”), his indifference towards Black Lives Matter, and why he doesn’t plan on reading his own book.
On Chance the Rapper & Solange: “These people are turning the clock right now. They are the trendsetters of tomorrow, and I actually pay attention to what they send me. If [my manager] Tez sends me a song and says, ‘I need you to do this verse for whoever,’ I knock it out in that one night and send it right back. When I get the Solange or Chance song, I’m actually riding in my car, banging that. When I put my verse on it, I’m telling my engineer, ‘Let me get a copy.’ The other ones, I’m just sending back to Tez.”
On Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, & Kodak Black: “I swear to God I didn’t know you were saying people’s names just now, so that should probably answer that question. I just do my own thing.”
On Black Lives Matter: “I was on a sports show recently, and I was asked a question like that about black lives or whatever. When we got off the air, [the host] Shannon Sharpe said: “I really want to commend you for answering like that, because you didn’t make something up just to make yourself one of us. And to make yourself a victim.” I’m not that. And honestly, I don’t care. I care what’s going on with me and my kids and my world and my mom and who’s going to pay this next bill. That’s what matters to me.”
On Donald Trump: “Who’s that?”
On Tha Carter V: “It’s done, sitting and wrapped as is. I just listened to it for the first time in months the other day. I had forgotten every single word on it, because I work every day. I popped it in, and I was like, it’s still so much better than everything I’ve ever heard. Not what’s going on right now — everything I’ve ever heard.”
On Gone ‘Til November: “I haven’t read it, and I don’t plan on reading it. I’m not one of those people who revisit things. I don’t remember [expletive]. I could meet the president and forget it. Of course I thought it was because I smoke too much. But somebody told me: ‘The reason why you don’t remember things is that it’s not the same for you as it is everybody else. Because you are it.'”