Lil Wayne BLENDER magazine interview

[Elano]

The biggest mouth in hip-hop loves Nirvana, loves codeine-spiked cough syrup even more—and has no idea what a koala is.

Hot Beats Recording Studios sits on the southwest side of Atlanta, tucked into a desolate stretch of road where every third streetlamp is burnt out. The building is stubby and drab: its facade gray concrete, its windows opaque. If it weren’t for the tour bus idling in the parking lot, the gaggle of luxury SUVs and the XXXL-size sentries keeping watch, you could mistake the place for an auto-parts wholesaler fallen into disuse. When Lil Wayne is in town, this is where he spends his evenings (and dead-of-nights, and early mornings). “They let me come in whenever,” he says. “And that works, ’cause I’m a man who doesn’t keep a regular schedule.”

These days, the New Orleans–born rapper, 25, splits his time between Atlanta, Miami and the road. He says he spends about 200 days a year on his tour bus. “I don’t have a home,” he notes. He’s wearing pristine high-tops, distressed designer jeans and a tight black T-shirt; and he’s clasping a Styrofoam cup full of promethazine-codeine cough syrup (one accessory­ he’s never without). “It’s supposed to make you sleepy,” he explains. “But I must have one badass immune system, because it just keeps me going. You’d think it was cocaine.”

The stuff works for him. Wayne has been known to record upward of a dozen songs in a single night, and his vast catalogue of straight-to-the-Net mix tapes—breathtaking, free-­associative dispatches from a dimension where the typical rules of hip-hop no longer apply—is evidence of his frenzied output. Tonight, though, he’s concentrating on the biggest release of his career—Tha Carter III—which will prove whether or not Wayne can translate the unhinged genius of his mix tapes into an actual, honest-to-God album.

Well, he’d like to be concentrating on the LP, but first there’s the matter of your questions. Is he ready for the third degree? “Let’s go, man,” he says, grinning. “I’ve had to deal with worse.”

You call yourself the Greatest Rapper Alive. Prove it: Can you make up a rhyme on the spot using the words doughnuts, koala and Conan O’Brien?
SufferFools, Modesto, CA

Whoever asked that is just as crazy as me. [Thinks quietly for a half-minute.] OK, I got you. Like a car, I drive your ho crazy/In circles, like doughnuts/I drive your ho nuts/That’s the truth, you know I ain’t lyin’,/You can ask Conan O’Brien/And I’ve never seen a motherfuckin’ koala/But if I seen one, I’m gon’ holla! I don’t even know what a koala is, man. It could be sitting right there and I wouldn’t know it.

You play a mean electric guitar. What’s your favorite rock band?
Mincemeat, Newark, NJ

Nirvana. I been into them since “Teen Spirit.” There used to be this video-request station called the Box, and some ­motherfucker must have loved Nirvana, ’cause that video was always on. I loved it—everyone was throwing everyone else around, and all the girls looked like they were ready to do whatever. When Kurt Cobain  killed himself, I was like, Damn. Other niggas were like, Who? Back then, if you knew some rock shit and your homey didn’t, that was the shit. Like, Nigga, you don’t know that? [Sings the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” riff.] They’d be like, He a different type of nigga.

Your mother was a professional chef. What’s the best meal she ever made you?
Roleyjay99, Manchester, NH

My favorite was potatoes and smoked sausage. By the time she came home from work, she done cooked 30 meals, so it was the quickest thing she could make. But she cooked it better than it could ever taste in the world.

At 16, you were touring arenas across the country with Cash Money. What was your single most-rock-star moment?
Phillip Ng, Dayton, OH

I was in Texas on some big-ass tour. At the beginning of every show, all the Hot Boys—me, B.G., Juvenile and Turk—we had this helicopter set in the middle of the arena; we’d climb in, and the helicopter would take off and bring us to the stage. Everyone would start screaming. We in the middle of the crowd, going up, and we’d throw money down as we flew. When we land, fire and sparks go off. The Big Tymers would come out through a giant Rolex and pour Cristal on people from these giant Cristal bottles; we came out in a helicopter. Whoo! My heart was in the bottom of my insoles. Crazy.

What drug will you never do again?
Freak_leak, Yakima, WA

I don’t do too many; I just smoke weed and drink sip. But I’ll never fuck with no more coke. It’s not about a bad high, it’s just about the acne: Cocaine makes your face break out, and I’m a pretty boy.

50 Cent has called you a “whore” repeatedly. Where is your comeback rhyme already?
Endlesslurve, Phoenix

Man, I have to call him and say thank you. He’s catapulted me. Nigga, white people know me now! Thank you! Diss rhyme? Fuck no! That nigga thrives off that. I am not feeding that tiger. I’m smart. Do you see his size? I’m small. I saw a YouTube video of this dude playing a concert; somebody threw water on him—he took off his hat, went in the crowd, grabbed that nigga and boom! I was like, This nigga’s the hardest nigga on planet Earth. So, no, I’m not dissing 50. And I’m not throwing water on him, neither.

Between the hundreds of rhymes you’ve recorded in the past few years, how do you remember them all?
ptinykiks, Abilene, TX

I don’t. Before I play a show, I need to sit with a CD player and remind myself.

You’ve said you want to retire and become a French hip-hop star. What dirty French words do you know?
Planter_6, Middletown, CT

Uh, ménage à trois? Man, I don’t know when I said that. I be saying all kinds of shit, ’cause I be wanting to do all kinds of shit. I be high, y’all.

You’ve been linked to Karrine “Superhead” Steffans and Trina. What is it about you and bad girls?
M_stein, Baldwinsville, NY

[Sings.] Bad girls, bad girls, whatcha gon’ do/Whatcha gon’ do when they come for you? Seriously, what you gonna do? I like to live on the edge.

Your daughter, Reginae, is 10 now. What’s a day like when you’re on dad duty?
fringemop, Hudson, NY

That’s it: I’m on duty. I gotta do whatever the little general tells me to do. She wake up super earlier than me, so all kinds of shit will have happened by the time I get up: Something might be burning on the stove, because she thinks she can cook. So then I take her out to eat. She likes steaks. I usually have studio time, but she has her own little area at the studio where she can sit on a computer. She plays a game called Millsberry—it’s like The Sims. Then she’ll disappear, and we’ll hit the call button. She’ll be way over in studio E with Celine Dion or Shakira, walking around with no shoes on. I’m like, You don’t know them people! And then we have to go to the mall. She’s always in the phone store, looking for the new case with, like, diamonds on it. I always gotta go to the bank before I go to the mall with her. Ain’t no thousand dollars in the pocket gonna cut it.

You’ve been arrested three times in the last six months. What’s the secret to surviving a weekend in jail?
hellsrells145, Passaic, NJ

It’s just like you living in a bad apartment. That’s how I look at it: Here we go. Fuck. Somebody gon’ fuck with you, but ignoring a nigga is cool. You getting out of there in a few days. That nigga just trying to make your stay longer. One tip is: If you only gonna be in there a few days, even if it’s a whole week, don’t eat. Who wanna shit in front of anyone? Everyone gonna smell you. Some niggas in there don’t care, but me, I’m a hygienical nigga. You gotta hold that in.

Excluding yourself, who’s in your Top 5 list of all-time greatest MCs?
Slingbangj, Montreal

In no particular order: Biggie, Pac, Jay-Z, Scarface and Cee-Lo Green. Actually, no, make it Bun B instead of 2Pac. I can’t front: I was never into Pac. I always listen to Bun, though. That man taught me how to rap.

Who do you want to take the White House?
candida.efrom, Detroit

Barack, I guess, but I can’t make a real opinion. I ain’t watching no debates. I just want my people to understand that Hillary and Barack are not running for president—they running to be able to run for president. There’s a Republican party, too—we ain’t about to win, fool! A woman or a black man versus an old white dude? Fuck no! They gonna be like, This black-ass nigga trying to come in my Oval Office? Fuuuuck no. The world about to end in 2012 anyway. ’Cause the Mayans made calendars, and they stop at 2012. I got encyclopedias on the bus. The world is gonna end as we know it. You can see it already. A planet doesn’t exist: There’s no more Pluto. Planes are flying into buildings—and not just the Twin Towers, but dudes who play baseball are flying planes into buildings. Mosquitoes bite you and you die. And a black man and a woman are running for president!

Your friend Pimp C died from a codeine-cough-syrup overdose. Are you afraid that stuff is going to kill you too?
majooly, West Palm Beach, FL

I’m never afraid to die, ’cause I could walk out this bitch and a lamp could fall on my head. A mosquito could bite me! I was shot when I was 12, and I had to get blood transfusions, so I have to get tested for HIV every six months ’cause I got different blood in me. I could die that way. I get migraines real bad on the left side of my head. When I blow my snot, my doctor was like, “What color’s the mucus?” I checked, and the mucus came out red from the left nostril. They said I needed an MRI, but I can’t get into a magnetic field, because I have metal fragments in my chest from when I got shot. We can never figure out what’s wrong with me. So I don’t be tripping. I be pouring it up.