Born and raised in New Orleans, Lil Wayne is one of the wealthiest rappers alive. The Louisiana musician is the mogul that founded the legendary Young Money label and is revered as one of the genre’s best lyricists.
However, in a recent interview, the ‘A Milli’ musician revealed that he stopped using a pen and pad to write down his lyrics upon finding out that legends such as Biggie Smalls and Jay-Z wrote rhymes in their head.
In an appearance on The Pivot podcast hosted by Fred Taylor, Ryan Clark, and Channing Crowder Jr., the emcee (real name Dwayne Carter) recalled the day he threw his pad in the trash and started building verses in his head.
Speaking on his influences and his realisation the Brooklyn act didn’t write lyrics, Carter explained, “Like Biggie, love Biggie, love Jadakiss, I love all that shit, but Jay. The moment I heard it I stopped. You could ask my boy. ‘I heard that n*gga Jay-Z don’t write no more.'”
He continued, “We went in the studio, and we did ‘10,000 Bars’ and that was the last time I rapped anything off of a paper.” The 2002 track was Carter purging every bar he had ever written before permanently stopping. The track was 35 minutes long.
Carter admitted that when he stopped writing, his former friend Birdman accused him of trying to copy Jay-Z when he was rapping. Elaborating on his love of Jay Carter told Rolling Stone, “When you find a favourite artist, you’re going to start sounding like them.”
He continued, “It took Birdman and them to pull my ass aside and be like, ‘Bro, I’m tired of every song you doing sounding like damn Jay-Z. You’re not Jay-Z.’” Although Wayne recognised he was sounding too alike the Brooklyn lyricist, upon finding his own style, to this day, he still has not put a pen to paper for his lyrics. You can watch a clip from The Pivot podcast interview below.