The story behind Young Thug and Lil Wayne’s beef
Young Thug, back when he was starting out in the rap game, wore his love for Lil Wayne on his sleeve.
He reportedly went so far once to claim that he’d rather work with his idol Wayne than with Michael Jackson, plus, as a tribute to Wayne and his Tha Carter series of albums, he’d initially planned for his debut commercial mixtape to be called Carter 6 upon its 2015 release.
But it was precisely around this time that things started to go wrong. The pair’s relationship swiftly deteriorated to the extent that serious violence became a very real prospect. How did things go so badly wrong?
The problems between Wayne and Thug seem to trace to Birdman, the co-owner of Cash Money Records, which, during that time, housed Wayne. Wayne and Birdman had once been close, but in December 2014 troubles between them boiled over. Wayne’s next album, Tha Carter V, had been scheduled for release on Cash Money, but that never happened—and Wayne blamed Birdman, claiming that he’d been made a “prisoner” to Cash Money. He’d later release Tha Carter V via Young Money Entertainment and Republic Records in 2018.
As the beef between Wayne and Birdman was heating up, the former released a mixtape called Sorry 4 The Wait 2 in January 2015, before days later filing a lawsuit for tens of millions against Cash Money. Things were turning nasty, but, all the while, Birdman was beginning to take a big interest in Wayne’s protégé Young Thug, whom he saw as a potential commercial star in the making. This placed Thug in an awkward position, sandwiched between his idol and a potential big-time label partner.
In April, Thug pulled something with a questionable meaning. He announced his upcoming debut commercial mixtape would be called Carter 6, in tribute to Wayne. The problem was that Wayne himself couldn’t actually release Tha Carter V because of, from his perspective, Birdman. Thug had grown close to Birdman, so was the decision to name his mixtape Carter 6 a dig at Wayne? Thug claimed it was all in a good spirit, a positive reference to his idol, but Wayne didn’t like it and threatened legal action. The mixtape was renamed Barter 6, following the Blood gang’s habit of using the letter “B” instead of “C.”
This incident saw Wayne and Thug begin to feud, with Thug opening his tour backing Barter 6 in Wayne’s own hometown of Hollygrove, Louisiana. That didn’t go down well, and he was subject to a lot of boos that night, but things were going way worse for Wayne, who was, apparently coincidentally, gigging in Thug’s hometown of Atlanta. His tour bus was shot at that night, and, a month later, a suspect named Jimmy “Peewee” Winfrey was arrested for it.
Both Young Thug and Birdman were later named as uncharged co-conspirators in Winfrey’s case, with prosecutors claiming that they had been called by Winfrey both before and after the shooting. Winfrey pled guilty and was sent to jail, though, after three years, his conviction was overturned. Birdman and Thug, meanwhile, were never charged for any involvement in the shooting, though Thug would later be sent to jail for gang-related activities. He was released in 2024.
Wayne and Thug’s relationship, in light of the shooting and subsequent allegations of Thug’s involvement, seemed like it would never recover, but, somehow, it did. In 2024 Wayne released a new song called ‘Bless,’ and it featured none other than Young Thug. In an appearance last month on The Pivot Podcast, Thug reinforced the notion that he and Wayne had patched things up, claiming that a collaborative album was on the cards. “Me and him got a way better relationship now,” he said. “We got an album and everything. We just ain’t sat down and just put the shit together and release the album together.”