Lil Wayne is one of the most recognizable rappers working today. He’s had hit after hit, and continues to spit some of the most iconic verses every time he drops music. Especially in the 2010s, Lil Wayne had quite the hold on pop culture.
However, even some of the greats working now have to get their inspiration from somewhere, and Lil Wayne certainly has his favourite picked out. When he sat down with DJ Kahled for his podcast, he revealed that he thinks Missy Elliott is the greatest rapper of all time.
In fact, Elliott was the one who inspired him to experiment with different sounds and ad-libs on a few of his earlier tracks, ‘Tha Block Is Hot’ and ‘Block Burner’.
He told DJ Kahled, “Missy Elliott — that was my favourite rapper because that would be why I was making so many sounds. You know, Missy was into the whole ‘Brrrrt’ [sound]. You know what I mean? She’s about to make the ‘hehehehe ha’ [sound].”
He even gets into how Mannie Fresh encouraged him to use sounds inspired by Missy Elliot on his song ‘Block Burner’. He said, “When Mannie Fresh would get you in the studio, he gon’ remind you, ‘Hey, you need to throw the ‘ha ha’ in there. I was like, ‘Man he wants me to do a sound for every damn line.’ And so the ‘Block Burner’ song was my best favourite song because my favourite artist was Missy Elliott.”
He even continued this inspiration after the success of the song. “Tha Block Is Hot’ was an example of what happened because of ‘Block Burner. I might have just said, ‘Tha block is hot, the block is hot,’ [but] Mannie would remind me, ‘Hey, you need to throw that ‘ha ha’ in there.”
It just goes to show that the history of rap music is rich, and that inspiration can come from all kinds of places. If you want to check out the full interview, you can find it linked below.