Lil Wayne—born Dwayne Carter—did not brush up on his extensive catalog before hitting the road on his Welcome to Tha Carter Tour. The hitmaker previously told Rolling Stone that he struggles to remember his songs nowadays.
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It’s been 15 years since the rapper released Tha Carter III. The 2008 record features “A Milli,” “Got Money,” “3 Peat,” “Mr. Carter,” and a dozen other recognizable rhymes. However, if you ask the icon about the award-winning collection, he can’t rattle off the tracklist.
“I’m going to be so honest with you: I don’t know Tha Carter III, Tha Carter II, Tha Carter One from Tha Carter IV,” explained Lil Wayne to the outlet. “And that’s just my God’s honest truth. You could lie, you could ask me [about] such and such song, I wouldn’t know what we talking about. So it holds no significance to me at all.”
He continued, “I always look at it as the curse part of the gift and the curse. I believe that [God] blessed me with this amazing mind, but would not give [me] an amazing memory to remember this amazing sh*t.”
Although he’s releasing vinyl to honor the significant milestone, the platinum-selling artist is already ahead and working on a new project. The 40-year-old confirmed that he “finalized” ColleGrove 2, a follow-up to his collaborative album with 2 Chainz, and is waiting for it to get approved.
“We’ve been finished with ColleGrove. Me and Tit [2 Chainz], every time we get together, we record. We got, like, 39 million songs,” confirmed Lil Wayne. “But he been putting it together. He was just waiting to get certain samples cleared. He’s very persistent. So sometimes when things don’t get cleared, he’ll go to the umpteenth to get it cleared. So sh*t, once he says when that’s when we going.”
The chart-topping artist stressed that he never stops working, no matter where he is.
“I work on multiple songs a day. I probably look at 20 verses a day. I’m on my bus right now. I have a studio set up on this bus,” shared the songwriter. “We have a studio bus behind me. In every hotel we get to, before I get to the room, my two engineers set up a studio in the bedroom. And I told you, we already have a studio booked in that city if that city has a nice studio, meaning I don’t stop working.”
He acknowledged that many musicians struggle with burnout, which ultimately leads to retirement. However, the legend doesn’t see his music career ending anytime soon.
“When you work the way I work, it gets strenuous, and it might flash,” he uttered. “When you’re an artist — a real artist like myself, I was born this way. So I don’t think that the real true artists and pioneers, they never retire. They died doing this.”
Lil Wayne is scheduled to join Snoop Dog, Lil Kim, Ice Cube, and more at the Hip-Hop 50 concert. The star-studded show at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, New York, is slated for Aug. 11. Tickets are available, HERE.
Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images
