Lil Wayne is paying his respect to the late great DMX.
Almost a month after the rapper’s death, Lil Wayne shared a heartfelt tribute to the Yonkers legend at Trillerfest in Miami on Saturday (May 1). While on stage, Weezy reflected on touring with X on the “Cash Money Ruff Ryders Tour” back in 2000, which featured top acts from two of the hottest hip-hop labels at the time including Eve, Swizz Beatz, The LOX, and Juvenile.
“When I was a younger kid, we used to be on tour a lot, like six months out the year,” Wayne told the crowd at Miami Marine Stadium. “And we used to go on tour with another record label because we used to have so many artists. We didn’t have to have no opening acts because we just needed another record label and it was just us and them. So back then, we went on this tour called the ‘Cash Money Ruff Ryders Tour.’ See, being from New Orleans, it’s so far away from New York and Cali and shit like that, we didn’t know if it was real when we seen it on TV, the New York guys, the L.A. people. So when we saw DMX, we all fell in love.”
Once he met X in-person, he was instantly taken. “But when I got on tour with him, now you in the hotel lobby, you in the backstage, you run across the ni**a and he actually say something to you,” Wayne continued. “And when you see this ni**a talk like how he rap and you see this ni**a is what he is, and you see this ni**a got a zillion dogs with him, then a zillion dogs with him, it’s impossible not to be obsessed, infatuated, motherfu**in’ impressed, whatever.”
Added Wayne, “Ladies and gentlemen, please make some noise for the late great DMX!”
He then launched into his Carter V hit “Uproar,” produced by one of DMX’s closest friends, Swizz Beatz. “It hit my brother real hard–real, real, real hard. My brother’s name is Swizz Beatz,” said Wayne. “He would never let a Lil Wayne album come out without a beat on that motherfu**er from him.”
DMX died on April 9 after suffering a heart attack. He was 50. In the wake of his death, his peers including Nas, Eve, Jadakiss, and Swizz honored him during a memorial service in Brooklyn last weekend.