HOW LIL WAYNE CHANGED THE HIP HOP GAME
Raised in the infamous New Orleans neighborhood of Hollygrove, Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. aka. Lil Wayne wrote his first rap song at age eight. And by the time he was eleven, he had convinced the Cash Money label to take him on, even if it was just for odd jobs around the office. He recorded freestyle raps on the label owner’s answering machine, moving him enough to agree to become his mentor. His strong work ethic and aggressive self-promotion combined has transformed him to what he is today- from a preteen delivering hardcore hip-hop to an impervious celebrity and the re-inventor of the mixed tape game.
After officially taking his stage name Lil Wayne, dropping the “D” from his first name in order to separate himself from an absent father, he joined the teen hardcore rap group ‘The Hot Boys’ along with B.G., Juvenile, and Young Turk, and released their debut album ‘Get It How U Live!’ in 1997 followed in 1999 by the group’s major-label debut Guerrilla Warfare, which reached No. 1 on the ’Billboard magazine Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart’. At age 17, Wayne decided to go solo and undertook a transformation almost unprecedented in hip-hop history. His debut album ‘Tha Block is Hot’ went platinum while his second and third albums went gold. But when The Hot Boys finally defected and rumors began flying about Cash Money’s financial troubles, his 2003 album was scrapped which he brought out instead as an underground mixtape called ‘Da Drought’.
Wayne quickly became engrossed with the mixtape world after ‘Da Drought’ drew so much attention from the hip-hop press. He started using these underground releases to drum up anticipation for his next official albums, paving way for a business model almost as counterintuitive as Radiohead’s. The next album ‘Tha Carter’ surprised everyone with Lil Wayne pictures in his now-signature dreadlocks. The album’s success established that where Lil wayne was involved, traditional business rules do not apply. Where most musicians carefully release an album’s worth of songs over a few years to keep from saturating the market, he sometimes recorded three songs in a night and gave them away on the Internet minutes later on a series of superb mix tapes. With the latest Lil Wayne songs and videos flooding the underground and his alternative marketing strategy working in overdrive, his second official album ‘Tha Carter II’ debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and went on to sell 2,000,000 copies worldwide. And just like that, Lil’ Wayne had single handedly transformed the hip hop game.
In 2005, Wayne was named president of Cash Money, and in the same year he founded Young Money Entertainment, the record label which went on to launch artists like Drake, T-Pain and Nicky Minaj. The next Lil Wayne album ‘Tha Carter III’ went double Platinum and won four Grammy awards, making him the undisputed king of the industry.
With the later albums like ‘Rebirth’, ‘Im not a human being’ and ‘Tha Carter IV’ being equally successful and Lil Wayne music videos still getting extensive playbacks on MTV, his claim of being the “best rapper alive” is no longer even debated in hip-hop or commercial circles. Ever since the days of ‘Tha Carter III’ Lil Wayne has been the undisputed champ.
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About the Author:
James Griffith is a freelance writer from London specialising in writing hiphop r&b music and uk grime music articles. Over the years he has developed an extensive knowledge of urban music and urban music artists and is considered one of the leading authorities on this subject. With a passion for Hip hop and R&B music since childhood, James Griffith brings great knowledge and a great understanding of this exciting music genre and his articles are both informative and entertaining too.
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