The Music Industry has been one of the most lucrative trades of the modern era.  Hip-hop, Rock, RnB, Classical, Pop.  You enter any of them and do well and you’ve probably earned yourself a hefty sum.  Music affects everything in people; the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they walk and so it can be a very potent weapon in the wrong hands.  If there is one person in the world of Music that is on every rap-loving person’s iPod, it’s Lil Wayne.  Despite my past teenage passions for rhyming poetry rapped in a hurry by black people with big gold chains, oversized sunglasses, and jeans six sizes too big, Lil Wayne was never, is never, and will never be on my iPod!

Lil Wayne is not the name that appears on his birth certificate, he is in fact known as Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr.  He insisted on disowning his birth name in sheer malevolence against his father.  He started off in the music industry aged 9 signing on to Cash Money Labels.  He released his first song at 15 and went solo at 17.  Since then, he has released eight albums, the most successful entitled Tha Carter III, the highest selling album of 2008. He is well known for never writing down any of his lyrics, rolling them off the tongue from memory.  He also confesses to being a sports enthusiast, having made an appearance on ESPN to add to his already impressive CV.  Philanthropic ventures have included donating $200,000 in the re-building of a local park in New Orleans, where Lil Wayne grew up, after the Hurricane Katrina disaster and setting up his own Non-Profit Organisation called One Family Foundation.  According to its website, it is designed “to empower urban youth by engaging them in opportunities to cultivate their talents and skills”.

There is more to Lil Wayne that meets the eye and his personal life is certainly very colourful.  He is well renowned for his recreational use of prescription cough medicine, otherwise known as Purple Drank, alongside marijuana.  He has been busted several times on possession of dangerous drugs including one incident where his tour bus was packed with 105g worth of Marijuana, 29g of cocaine, 41g of Ecstasy, and a further $22,000 in cash.  Not to mention being caught on many occasions with illegally possessing a firearm which managed to get him sentenced for a year in March 2010 only to be released four months early in November of last year.

I’m not sure whether to laugh at the illogicality of it all or to cry in sheer despair but Lil Wayne also admitted on the Jimmy Kimmel Show that he managed to lose his virginity at 11!  Quite how he did that would baffle most of us I’m sure.  He replaced his natural teeth with diamond plated teeth worth a staggering $150,000.  Lil Wayne managed to give his dentist more reasons to laugh all the way to the bank when he had to get eight root canals done, replace many tooth implants, along with more work on his natural teeth.  He professes to be a committed Christian having read the bible regularly during jail time and yet raps about “the almighty power of Allah” in his first original release of A Millie.  He has a huge variety of tattoos all over his body from Fear God written on each eyelid, to the Rolls Royce symbol on his left bicep, to Cash Money Records on his chest.

His attitude in life generally is one of sheer defiance.  In an intimate interview with Katie Couric he mentions that “I am a gangster…I do what I wanna do”.  That is also backed up by his constant law-breaking antics including possessing narcotics for sale, misconduct involving weapons, possession of dangerous drugs, and possession of drug paraphernalia.  His suggestive lyrics are not exactly morally sound and his use of autotune is not sweet to every ear.

It is quite clear that with all this mounting evidence, Lil Wayne is not exactly a very stable human being with any long term aims or moral code.  He lives for carnal pleasure and nothing more, and it is blindingly obvious to see how his attitude is replicated in his music for all to see.

“Hip-hop has no requirements, you deal with people that have the least intelligence on the planet”- 50 Cent.

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