Lil Wayne writes about various subjects and is inspired by multiple people. The Louisiana emcee has released over thirteen studio albums and 29 mixtapes. However, in 2009, on his mixtape No Ceilings, the lyricist (real name Dwayne Carter) strangely had a track inspired by Martin Lawrence.
Entitled ‘I’m Single’, the beat was produced by Noah “40” Shebib and Omen. It was officially released on iTunes on May 11, 2010. The track, which debuted at number 82 on the Billboard 100, had accompanying visuals and, in an interview with MTV News, the videographer DJ Scoob Doo explained how the track and video were inspired by Martin Lawrence.
Elaborating, the DJ unveiled, “[Wayne’s girl was mad that] he didn’t make it home in time. He stayed out all night. That’s the idea I got with the song – it brought me back to watching the film A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. Me growing up watching Martin [Lawrence], it was epic, it was a funny movie.”
He continued, “I loved the cinematography in it. [Writing the script for the video], that was me being a fan of that movie and good music and putting it together.” The visuals also had some cameos.
The video stars the models Tammy Torres as Weezy’s girlfriend and Natasha Salimi as his wife. Torres had appeared previously in Carter’s ‘Mrs. Officer’ video, as well as the visuals for Busta Rhyme’s ‘Arab Money.’
In an interview with MTV, Salimi spoke about her experience shooting the video, jovially declaring, “It was fun because I got to act a little crazy, stabbing the cake and throwing stuff. Scoob was telling me to try and act as natural as possible and think about if I had something like that that happened in the past.”
She continued, “I tried to really put myself in the position of the role I was playing. Everything was laid-back, it was cool. Scoob is a great director. It went by quick. We came up with it as we were acting. I was like, ‘Wait, why don’t I act like I’m stabbing the poster then stab the cake?'”
You can listen to the song inspired by Martin Lawrence in the video below.
