“I never want to say this word, but it’s easy for me right now,” admits Wayne, exhaling smoke and taking a birdlike bite of pasta. His voice is low and muddled, like cleats stabbing gravel. “And it’s so easy that it’s complicated.”
This is his headspace leading up to the release of Tha Carter V. As one of the most improvisational rappers of all time, Wayne is notoriously loath to articulate what often comes effortlessly. “I’m just a regular street nigga that’s a little smarter than the rest. I rap whatever comes up in my head,” he adds. “Whatever rhymes with the next word and how I’m feeling. I start rapping and we find something within what I just said and make a song out of it.” His words recall the John Keats quote: “If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.” But Keats relied on the quill and tablet and Wayne insists that he never writes.
It’s been that way since 2004, when he molded the nimble bayou bounce of his early style to a fanged and intricate attack indebted to traditional East Coast slickness. While other rappers were seeking risk-free replications of gangster archetypes, Wayne got weirder and weirder, using Prince, syrup, sex, and weed as divine muses. “When he raps, he makes you think,” says Minaj, the first female artist Wayne signed to his Young Money imprint. “His wordplay, skill, intelligence, metaphors, cartoonish flows, and voices are unmatched. He taught me the true meaning of work ethic. Even when you’re the boss, work like it’s your first day on the job.”
Cranking out surrealistic pun-and-simile jags, Wayne forged his legend by demolishing every hot single, dropping countless mixtapes, and proclaiming himself “The Best Rapper Alive.” By the release of Tha Carter III, the arrogance felt prophetic. And then he went to jail. “I went in there at 138 pounds and came out 152. That was the only change I knew in there,” says Wayne with a chuckle when asked about the long-term impact of the eight months of 2010 that he spent on Rikers Island for “attempted criminal possession of a weapon.”
But incarceration altered a few things. What once came off as inspired mania sometimes started to feel erratic and out of focus. A generation of artists raised on Wayne emerged, making his stylistic innovations part of their portfolio. He made a rap-rock album. Probationary drug tests also made marathon weed-smoking sessions impossible. Call it tangential, but a sober Wayne is as unthinkable as a teetotaling Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, or Snoop Dogg. His music often missed that narcotic elasticity. “I don’t know how it works, but I know that I need weed…extra when I’m creating,” says Wayne, becoming more alive and affable with every hit, as though the THC is laced with caffeine. Two more blunts wait in an orange airtight canister. A half-dozen are half-smoked in the ashtray—each a belated celebration over the drug testing that ended a year ago. “It helps in a major way.”
Other contraband has a less dependable track record. In October of 2012, a pair of seizures forced Wayne into the hospital. Another set struck in March of the following year. The details are murky, but the situation was so severe that TMZ reported and then retracted the claim that Wayne received his last rites. The tabloid news site alleged that doctors found dangerously high levels of codeine in his system. Wayne countered by admitting that he suffered from epilepsy, which had stricken him many times in the past.
“I wasn’t aware of anything. It just happened and I woke up in the hospital. I don’t remember anything about the experience,” says Wayne with a shrug. “It might have been the reality. It might have felt like it in the news, but for me, I was just the guy in the hospital chilling.” If anything, the outpouring of support from other celebrities surprised him the most. He expected concern from fans and family, but received heartfelt convalescent visits from Drake, Minaj, Usher, and Los Angeles Clippers star Chris Paul. “I don’t mean to sound bad, but it wasn’t no life-changing thing,” continues Wayne, momentarily slipping into memories he’d rather not dredge. “I shot myself when I was 12. I grew up in Hollygrove. I’ve seen way worse.” When you’re blessed with obscene talent, obsession, and millions of dollars at an early age, the logical outcome is to push your invincibility to the brink. Music history is a relief map of premature death. Those who survive usually turn to religion or doting parenthood; Wayne found skateboarding. He discovered it a few years ago while watching a Fuse show about a skateboarding prodigy named Alex Midler. They’ve since become close friends. “His spirit was so awesome that he made a motherfucking nigga from the streets pick up a skateboard and fall in love with it,” says Wayne.
Read more athttp://www.lilwaynehq.com/2015/01/l...uys-magazine-cover-story/#A7F3dErj8FeZYmgs.99
