Lil Wayne once explained how being high doesn’t affect his writing ability: “That’s what I do”
Lil Wayne is one of hip-hop’s most revered lyricists. However, he is from the South, where Lean was born. Lean began as a drink primarily consumed in the South. However, as the South’s grip on hip-hop has become ever tighter, the drinking of Lean has become more widespread and popular.
Of course, weed is still smoked, and percs are still used to enhance the music-making experience, but irrespective of what people are taking, being high has become a part of modern-day rap, and Lil Wayne is no stranger to this.
Although many would argue that lean slows you down and makes you less alert in the studio, Lil Wayne has previously asserted that no drug could ever affect him or his ability to be a great rapper. Still, the New Orleans emcee has even one more obstacle to overcome. He doesn’t write his verses down on paper. Everything that he raps comes straight from his head and, often, is not even memorised but pure freestyling in the booth.
During an interview, Lil Wayne explained how he just gets in the booth and compared it to fighting, detailing, “I just got straight in there and cut the music on, light my good cigarette up, you know, not the tobacco, and then I go for it,” adding, “It’s sort of like a war for me when he cuts the music on. It’s sort of like a fight, I just start fightin’ with the words. I don’t need a tablet [of paper]. If I had a tablet, I’d get beat up.”
But while talking about whether the lean fogs his brain, he insisted it boils down to instinct and is simply part of his being, explaining, “[No] because it’s real. Let me see if I can explain it. You know how if you have a bad dog and he’s just a bad dog? His job is to be bad to anybody around. And if you catch that dog at 3am in the morning asleep, as soon as he wakes up, he’s back barking and trying to bite you, ‘cuz he’s a bad dog, and that’s what he does.”
After using his analogy about a seemingly rabid, bad dog, the Louisiana native got more personal, adding, “Rappin’ is what I do, so I can be under any [situation]—I could be dyin’, I could be just wakin’ up, I could be at my happiest moment, my saddest moment, I could be speechless, I could be voiceless, but I could still rap.”
In a strange twist, Wayne told IGN Music magazine that using a pen and pad isn’t necessary and that having any sort of distraction like a piece of paper disrupts the stream of consciousness, continuing, “That’s what I do. So that’s why I really don’t use the pen and pad, ‘cuz I kind of feel like when you use the pen and pad, you’re readin’. And when you’re readin’ somethin’, man, you’re payin’ attention to what you’re readin’ instead of what you’re doin’.”
Lil Wayne hasn’t been in the spotlight recently but was the centre of attention when he reacted to what he perceived as a snub by the NFL after they announced the halftime headline act last year. Many of his former proteges, including Drake, have seen a decline recently, so understandably, he is playing a backseat role for now.