Where is there? Do you mean the top?
Who knows? Maybe the top isn’t where I need to be. But I just know one day I will be there. Wherever there should be. That’s what my mind frame is every day: working on getting there. You’re never there.

Tha Carter III is probably your most anticipated album. Do you sense that you have a different type of popularity now?
The difference is more… And people expect more. I want this s–t to be the best. It ain’t even about being great. They want me to be better than something they can compare it to—whatever they compare it to. Whatever’s best, they want me to be that. That’s a great feeling, ’cause I know I gotta meet that quota every time. And it makes me try to be on my s–t.

That pressure, does it—
Not at all, sweetheart. My mama taught me things backwards when I was small. Love was hate. Opposite. When you grow up, you find out what’s real, but you already used to the words… Trust me, I’m human, baby. I don’t want nobody looking like, “That ni–a’s lying.” It’s pressure, but I’m different. Pressure to me may be a turn-on. I need that motivation. Pressure to somebody else is pressure.

In your last XXL interview, you said you weren’t concerned about sales, that you just wanted to make a great album.
Yeah, that’s very not important to me—sales. I’m not set out to be bought. I’m set out to be heard… I’m focused on making great music. Every time I step in the booth, there’s nothing else. I’m not trying to make a great album. I just try to make great music.

Your development as an artist surprised a lot of people. You went from being just another member of Cash Money to being recognized as a top lyricist in the game. Do you ever wonder how the perception of you has changed?
If I thought about that, I’d be the craziest dude in the world. ’Cause perception is from somebody else’s eyes. I can’t get in your head and see what you see, so why would I even care about what you see? F–k what you see. I wish all you b–ches was blind… A lotta people didn’t expect me to be this good. I like them just as well, because now that mean I have to be better for them. To blow their mind. Now I have to do something superstupid for them to be like, “Damn, I ain’t never knew you’d be this good.”

Have you felt the change from just a rapper to a superstar?
[Long pause] I’d be lying if I say I don’t. I’m trying to be modest. Yeah, I did. Because I carry myself different now. I dress different now. I act different. As far as behind the mic, though, no. Because I don’t look at myself as a superstar behind the mic. Never have. I look at myself as—I don’t know why I keep using these damn words—great or the best. As far as the skills part of it or the technical part of it, that’s the only thing that’s grown. It ain’t about I’ve grown into this superstar. It’s about I’ve grown into this person that people pay attention to. I’ve grown into this person that people expect from.

Is it hard to meet those expectations when you record so much material and with so many different artists? Is it hard to maintain high standards? Some people say you’re what makes those songs hot—
I’m what makes the song great. You can’t play “This Is Why I’m Hot” on the radio right now. They gon’ call up and be like, “What the hell is that?” [Sings the hook to last winter’s ubiquitous hit from Mims] This is why… That’s not hot. That’s old. You can play “Tha Block Is Hot.” F–k my song. You can play Destiny’s Child “Soldier”! You could do that. That’s okay. You could play Lloyd’s “You.” Chris Brown. I don’t make hot music. I make great music. If I make hot music, then I been on fire for a long f–kin’ time. The flame is burning out, sweetheart. I’m not hot. I’m great.

Okay. The collaborations with nonrappers like Gym Class Heroes and Enrique Iglesias obviously expand your audience and increase your visibility. But do you think it could be damaging in any way?
No, I just think it’s setting a trend for music. Like, if you wanna be successful, you gotta work like shortie. You gon’ see him on the BET Awards. He gon’ perform twice on that bitch. On MTV Awards. He gon’ be on the pre-show performance. And then he gon’ come out with a new mixtape, and then he gon’ be on this person single. You gotta tackle it like I do. I think I’ma set that bar and have people thinking, man—

That working hard actually works.
Yeah. I set a bar for everybody, mentally. Everybody in the game. I say mental bar ’cause of what I think they can or can’t do. ’Cause I don’t know what nobody can do. I don’t think nobody knows what they can do ’til they do it… A lotta people have better situations than I, and they know that. People look at me like, “I can do that.” Work that hard. Work like Wayne. I’m changing it. It used to be, “Work like Jamaicans.” Work like Wayne.

[Laughs] 50 called you an industry whore because of all your guest verses. Is there anybody you would turn down doing a record with?
Hell no. Whores get paid. I don’t care. It’s music, let’s make it. I’ll only turn you down if you ain’t got the price. I’ll turn you down and away.

Some people think you’re oversaturating the market, though. Have you ever thought about that?
Listen. [Leans in, speaking directly into the recorder] Darling, I don’t care what nobody think. Talk to me like you talking to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. You’re not about to ask him about what he think about what somebody said about him. You ’bout to ask him about his greatness, and his greatness only. I don’t care what nobody think. If I did, you wouldn’t be sitting on my muthaf—in’ million-dollar bus in my 15th year at the same muthaf—in’ company and business. I’m a role model. You should get like me. Get like you? No. Get like me. Ya understand me? I’m not hot. Hot dies out. Baby, I’m me. Who the f–k done this? Nobody. Compare me to people that’s not even living, baby. And they didn’t even do it—what they comparing me to. No disrespect to them. You found songs on those people after they died. I’m still living.

C: Do you think that having so many songs out for free makes people not want to pick up the album?
LIL WAYNE: No, I think if that’s the case then you’re stupid because you read the whole play wrong. When you hear me on everybody’s beat, that’s my promotion, I am my promotion. I sat down with my team at Universal, and I had to let them know I don’t want a street team. I was like, “I don’t want you to have to tell a person to play Lil Wayne’s album or please can you spin this, I don’t want that, I want those motherf—ers calling y’all like, ‘where the f–k is that Lil Wayne album?’” I’m my best promotion, straight up, I get better on everything you hear, every song you hear you think it’s mine and some people be actually upset that it isn’t.

C: Is there a statement you’re trying to make with the album?
LIL WAYNE: Nah…not at all, not at all, I don’t make statements, I make moves.

C: Do you think your life has a meaning?
LIL WAYNE: Yeah it does, of course. I don’t care, I’m not worried if it has a meaning to the world-but to my family and friends, yes my life has a meaning, I live through them.

C: So if you were to pass away, what would you want the statement of your life to be, how would you want to be remembered by the world?
LIL WAYNE: I can’t answer that question either because if I tell you how I want a motherf—er to perceive me while I’m [young], then I need to be pinched because I got too much bulls–t time on my hands to tell you what another person should be thinking about me, f–k no. I can see red out of my eyes, you can see blue so people love me, people hate me, people like me, people never heard of me. I can’t answer the question for all those people.

C: What do you listen to these days?
LIL WAYNE: Me! All day, all me. Ask me this question too: do I not like anybody? Nah, it ain’t that, I got friends in this whole industry, everybody who do anything is cool with me, but you’re not about to see Kobe at AI’s game, chilling, watching. He gonna be working on being Kobe, making Kobe better but that’s how I do me, I gotta listen to me, critique and analyze everything, every time you hear music playing. I don’t want to be without that Aaliyah, “Let Me Know,” “Killing Me Softly,” s–t like that. I don’t really listen to no rap.

C: You seem to be singing a lot more now too.
LIL WAYNE: Mmmm, hmmm. Pain, that’s all that is, pain, pain brings that out you.

C: Where’s the pain coming from these days?
LIL WAYNE: Me. If you blame something else for your pain then you’re an a–hole. You are your pain, ni–a. You can cut yourself right now. That don’t hurt because you are your pain. If it hurts you, then you done that, it’s a mind thing. You ever notice when you have a very stuffy nose or you have a cold and you eat something, you don’t taste nothing, you be like, “I can’t eat nothing, I can’t taste it, I’m hungry,” that’s because you don’t actually taste nothing, you know what I mean? You are you, you make everything around you. You make water, you make the sky, because it’s you, if you don’t want that to be water then it ain’t water, f–k. It’s you, so…ya dig?

C: So is there anybody you’re competing against?
LIL WAYNE: Ask Oscar De La Hoya because he’s a beast, because he caught Floyd Mayweather and Floyd Mayweather got like 10 million and they say he [Oscar] got like 25 million. When Michael Buffer started speaking he didn’t say broadcasting live from Showtime HBO, that ni–a said, his first words were, “Brought to you by Golden Boy Promotions…” That’s his fight, I don’t give a f–k, beat me, you made my fight, [claps] thank you. Can you please whoop my ass again on TV? It was the most viewed fight ever in history; I broke records, thank you. That’s how you gotta think man, that ni–a’s a monster. Him, Tom from MySpace and Bill Gates, I just wanna smoke three blunts with them, just three, just three blunts, I bet you I’ll come back high, whoo, them ni–as are beast.

C: What about Mark Cuban?
LIL WAYNE: He’s a G for real, I saw him coming out of my condos one day with an iPod on him and two big ni–as with him, ain’t no security. They were just rocking, three together. I ain’t got no racist issues, but when you see a cracker with two ni–as, you know that cracker got all that money, he don’t even need to see a ni–a, no black people ever need to come in his eyesight he’s so rich-and these your homeboys? I respect the f–k out of him for that, you know, and he ain’t see me but he saw my homie, he asked him what’s popping tonight, he’s a G for real, so I f–k with Mark Cuban heavy. I love a ni–a who do what the f–k he want, just like I told you, Martin Luther King said we can do what the f–k we want, he do what the f–k he want, him and Bam Margera. What will Bam do next? Whatever the f–k they want…that’s one of my favorite shows.

C: [Laughs] What’s your writing process like? You just jot everything down?
LIL WAYNE: I don’t write nothing, I just keep ideas and never f–king use them. I just write down s–t, like bad situations or stories. Jot them down as I go, like, cool idea, and if I f–king remember when I’m in the studio-when I’m in the studio, when I hear a new song, I’m going to start a line off fresh and I always just keep going because I be like, “I’m killing it right now but I know I got some bad ass ideas written down.”

C: How do you lay down your verses?
LIL WAYNE: Sporadically. I just be chilling, drinking, smoking and I’m like turn the mic on. I visualize a lot of things too, I like to see it before I say it, how I want to look on the video or if it’s going to be a single, I take it all the way down to if I was rapping this motherf—ker song a capella to a person that don’t know or like me, that’s how I approach every song, how can I get a person to pay attention to it? I ain’t gotta get you to like me but I can get a person to pay attention. Like, the people you’re sitting next to on the plane and they’re wondering why the f–k you’re sitting next to them in first class, I want them to be able to ask me a question and I’ll be able to start rapping to them and they don’t even know it’s a rap. That’s how you do it, that’s how you bring people into whatever you want to bring them into.

C: I see…
LIL WAYNE: What I mean is, if you working the door at the Trump Towers, and when you got the job they told you to say “hello” or “goodbye” to everybody that pass out that motherf—er, but when you clock out and you work your door at your house, you don’t even speak to motherf—ers, or you be like, “what up ni–a”. You can’t come to the Towers and say “what up ni–a,” you gotta say, “hello” and “goodbye.” Now it’s on you to get your point across to where even they say “what up, ni–a.” You gotta figure out a way to make them motherf—ers feel exactly what you’re saying because everybody went through the same thing, the whole world. Black, white, green, yellow, purple, dogs, animals, people, we all go through the same thing, ain’t no different s–t about us, nobody.

C: Did you ghostwrite Tity Boi’s verse on “Duffle Bag Boy”?
LIL WAYNE: Hell no, everybody be asking that, it’s so great that people think I wrote it because it shows that I am helping the game. I’m making ni–as get on their s–t. He’s just so much on his s–t to where y’all actually thought I wrote it. Like I wrote an album with Juelz Santana and I ain’t going to lie, niggas ain’t going to listen to that s–t in New Orleans for some years. I can’t help but be competitive, ni–as is spitting and I’m glad because you gotta look at it like when Biggie was doing it. When Biggie and Pac did it, they didn’t have anybody trying to beat them.

C: To what extent do you think competition has helped today’s rap game?
LIL WAYNE: I really can ride and listen to the radio now, you know what I mean, because whatever comes on, niggas ain’t on no bulls–t no more. You got Rick Ross, he’s spitting, you got Jeezy, he’s spitting, Plies, these people been out. “If I don’t do nothing I’ma ball, counting all day like a clock on a wall”: man, I gotta talk, because people are listening. “Bling Bling,” that s–t went everywhere, nobody even knows I made that. White people be like, “You have bling bling in your mouth.” I’d be like, “do you know I created that term?” You know what I mean?

C: Right
LIL WAYNE: It ain’t that no more, it ain’t the, “Back That Ass Up” era no more. Like I was saying, I made it to where, these fly ni–as in the game, it was Puffy, Jay, you gotta put on a Versace t-shirt, hat, glasses, all that. You can throw on a v-neck and walk down the red carpet at the Grammys. But let me break real down to you, we done made it to where you can actually wear a colorful pair of tennis shoes with a check and a star, with an ape on it, a colorful hoodie, you look like a f—ing cartoon and you can actually make a song about it and people going to love it. Now who the hell dumbed down fashion like that? Who created a path so you can do that? Who started wearing Bapes? I mean no disrespect to the Clipse, nor Pharrell and them, but I was the hottest ni–a to ever have Bapes on…quote that, and I’m the hottest ni–a that’ll never put another piece of it on because of the way they did me.

C: How’d they do you?
LIL WAYNE: No disrespect to nobody and I f–k with the homie Nigo. He’s cool as a motherf—er because he let me keep the s–t, wear whatever, it’s nothing against him and I ain’t stopping wearing because the Clipse said. I stopped wearing because I don’t want no more problems. I don’t want y’all ni–as to think I wanna be like y’all and y’all get mad at me. We brought y’all through the ‘Nolia way back in 2002. We brought y’all through there so y’all was straight, feel me, ni–as showed y’all love then they f–k with Gillie-you know, that’s a whole story; he was on the video so that’s why I really kind of thought that this is about me, they shoulda said my name, is that a promotion? But like I said, I just don’t want no problems so that’s why I took it off, plain and simple, I don’t want no beef because beef is a different f—ing thing from where I’m from, I don’t want that, I don’t want that at all, I-don’t-want-that.

C: Do you think you will ever settle down with one woman?
LIL WAYNE: I think they don’t commit to a ni–a, they committed to a myth. I’ll be on the road two weeks straight, the whole time I’m telling them, “oh I’m coming home, oh I love you blah, blah, blah” soon as I get there, I done pulled in about seven that evening, at 10 I’m going straight to the studio. Ain’t no woman want to get into that. I got marriage in the future, though. I just don’t talk too much about it, because I ain’t sure yet, that’s the example of saying I’m engaged and nothing happened and I ain’t do that, but marriage in the future, hopefully. You know the person when you just ain’t ask it yet, [laughs] I ain’t ask her yet but…

C: Does she know who she is?
LIL WAYNE: Mmm-hmm. I was thinking hard, the [BET] Awards are tomorrow, so I had the ring-I don’t have it with me, I was trying to get it for tomorrow, but it’s a problem, f–k y’all up.

C: You were going to propose on stage?
LIL WAYNE: I was going to hopefully win the award, I was going to do it like this: if I had that ring I’m not going to do it on the reg, I’m only going to do it if I win the award. If I win the award then I’m supposed to get married, but no I didn’t get the ring from them so I’m not going to do it. She’ll be there tomorrow, though.

C: What scares you?
LIL WAYNE: Never having a wife, a not-leaving wife.

C: Really?
LIL WAYNE: I don’t want to do that s–t alone, like my family and friends can come and share the weekends if they want, but I want to make somebody happy. You look at the future, you expect it would be you and some kids and so on. I think a woman gets a glimpse of that when they f–k with me, that’s the beginning basically, they see that what I just said, they see that and that’s hard to look over.

C: You claim Baby as your father, did he ever have to discipline you?
LIL WAYNE: Yeah, if you take discipline as giving me game. He never has because I always had those three brothers and them ni–as is a problem. You look at discipline as telling me things, giving me a way, showing me an example of a better way to live, a way to do things, that discipline he’s giving me. Him and his brother Slim, but as far as discipline I been my own discipline. Like my mama, she got a harsh way of talking, that’s why I rap, I might tell these ni–as “go eat your mama’s —–” and don’t mean no word, letter of it, that’s how my mama talk. Basically she never had to touch me or nothing like that but her words. [laughs] They come after your heartbeat.

C: Now when you say your three brothers you’re referring to the Hot Boy$?
LIL WAYNE: Yup.

C: Are you still in touch with them?
LIL WAYNE: We back! [Laughs] That’s the new thing, everybody’s back, we ain’t started yet but we about to do the thing over. The first single they did, you know we got B.G. on there and Mannie did the beat. Hot Boy$, my brothers, we coming, we definitely coming. We’re going to be heard.

C: How did you guys get back together?
LIL WAYNE: The zone, I always just take a stand because I gotta rock with my team and if you have problems with my team, you got problems with me, but now you know they saying that they don’t have a problem, they clearly stated that. My team also. I find we’re more mature; to take someone’s problem and call it mine, that’ll kill you and I don’t want to die. I don’t have problems with none of them. Also the business aspect-they could be on my label, I’m going to plan the Baby return minus the trouble, and that’s when it was like “OK, I’m not doing it for the money, I’m doing it because I love these ni–as.” I always say if you think I’m doing this for the money then I don’t need that. I could do me and make more. I started with them, I’m trying to end with them, so here, shine the light.

C: So who approached you with the idea for the reunion?
LIL WAYNE: Somebody said Juve want you on the phone. B.G. of course is like y’all going to do it? Y’all going to do it? Y’all going to do it? And once it came back from that end to me it was like-you should do this and get off your f—ing high horse and be like “what are you guys going to do?” A solider, we make a solider, didn’t New Orleans tell you, whatever we say, believe it man. Third world country New Orleans. They tried to wipe us off the map for real.

C: A lot of people, word on the streets including myself here, think that Kanye took you on that “Barry Bonds” joint…
LIL WAYNE: He took me?

C: Yeah.
LIL WAYNE: I think he did too, meaning his verse was better. Yeah but I’m going to get him. ‘Ye killed me on that song. I was tight because I was like it could be way hotter than this. So when I heard his verse I was like “oh, we doing this again.” I done it twice, they got two different versions. I done one and I ain’t hear his verse and I done the other one after I heard his verse and even when I finished I said why don’t you let him be the man of song. Meaning that it was needed and what I’ve done nobody else can do it.

“I don’t have no ideas for tracks. I don’t wanna have no ideas,” admits the New Orleans-based MC. “I’m a rapper, man. That’s all I do.”

Instead, Lil’ Wayne is content to let Mannie Fresh–his in-house, in-demand producer at Cash Money Records–handle all the writing and production of the label’s acts.

“That n-gga’s a genius,” Wayne says. “He been doin’ this for years. Why should I come along and say anything?”

You can see why Wayne feels he’s in good hands. The Hot Boys’ debut, Get It How U Live!!, almost went gold in the South alone. The follow-up, 1999′s Guerilla Warfare, has been riding high in the charts. And don’t forget Hot Boy member Juvenile’s huge-selling solo disc, 400 Degreez.

Now comes the Fresh-produced Tha Block Is Hot, which has attracted attention not only for its innovative music (like the salsa-flavored “Respect Us”), but also Wayne’s potent lyrics. Delivered in his distinctive, high-pitched Southern drawl, Wayne covers everything from being a first-time father (“Up To Me”) to unblinkingly lurid scenarios of ghetto life (“Keisha”).

“A lotta n-ggas don’t wanna break it down,” Wayne says. “They wanna avoid reality, but that ain’t me. I’m gonna speak what I’ve been through, cause that’s all I know.”

Before Wayne was 10, he was skipping school and hustling in his native Hollygrove, a crime-ridden Crescent City community. Nicknamed “Lil’ Wheezy,” he spent his days “gettin’ into scandals. Tryin’ to get money. And I was slick, man.”

Maybe so: he managed to avoid any serious run-ins with the law. But after hearing rappers like Pimp Daddy, who recorded for a small local label called Cash Money, Wayne soon found another focus.

After badgering the label’s co-founders, Brian “Baby” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams, Wayne got his chance. He first appeared on fellow Hot Boy B.G.’s 1993 album True Story. However, it wasn’t until 1997–when he was teamed with B.G., Juvenile, and Young Turk to form the Hot Boys–that Wayne first tasted major success.

Now the four Boys regularly turn up on each other’s records, and all four appear in Cash Money’s upcoming direct-to-video movie, Baller Blockin’. But even though Wayne and the other Cash Money artists play themselves in the film, Wayne “ain’t really into the movies.”

So don’t expect to soon see him on the silver screen–or back in the classroom. “Ain’t no n-gga out the hood wanna go to school,” he says defiantly. “I ain’t tryin’ to be no role model. If parents wanna get mad at me for sayin’ that, feel where I’m comin’ from. I’m from the streets.

“I might go back someday,” he adds later. “But I ain’t rushin’.”

For the moment, Wayne has plenty of projects on his plate. And he’s not worried about overexposure. “Naw, man. When you overexposed on somethin’ that’s hot,” he says, “that just means everybody wants it.”

IGNM: Now did you scrap all of those early sessions?

Lil’ Wayne: What I did is that I put it out as a mixtape and gave it away for free.

IGNM: Nice. So there is a version of the original floating around out there then for the hardcore fans to get a hold of.

Lil’ Wayne: Yeah. It’s called The Drought.

IGNM: Then when you stepped back into the studio to work on the album again, you came with all new, fresh material, right?

Lil’ Wayne: Yeah, 100%

 IGNM: So what’s a typical day in the studio with Lil’ Wayne like? Do you sit at home and write rhymes and then Mannie hollers at you and you go down to the studio?Lil’ Wayne: I don’t write homey.

IGNM: What?

Lil’ Wayne: I just got straight in there and cut the music on, light my good cigarette up, you know, not the tobacco, and then I go for it.

IGNM: Just straight off the top of the dome?

Lil’ Wayne: Yeah. It’s sort of like a war for me when he cuts the music on. It’s sort of like a fight, I just start fightin’ with the words. I don’t need a tablet [of paper]. If I had a tablet, I’d get beat up.

IGNM: Then how do you work with Mannie? Does he call you up when he has some beats that he feels would work for you? Or do you holler at him when you’re ready to go to war, so to speak?

Lil’ Wayne: What happens is that Baby will call me and he’ll already have like 10 songs already done by Mannie and he’ll just give ‘em to me and let me go from there. Like Mannie does beats like rappers do songs. You know how 2Pac kept recording? Or how like a rapper nowadays will keep recordings? Mannie does beats like that, he keeps doing beats. So he has beats for anything. He just does ‘em and then I come in and kill it.

IGNM: That kind of surprises me, since most emcees usually write something down, whether it’s just the chorus or a single verse, before they step into the booth to record a track. You know, they usually jot stuff down or they’re in a restaurant and they scribble some lines on a paper napkin…

Lil’ Wayne: Uh-uh. I’d be too high for that.

IGNM: But you ain’t too high to come up with stuff off the top of your head?Lil’ Wayne: That’s because it’s real. Let me see if I can explain it. You know how if you have a bad dog and he’s just a bad dog. His job is to be bad to anybody around. And if you catch that dog at 3 AM in the morning asleep, as soon as he wakes up, he’s back barking and trying to bite you, ‘cuz he’s a bad dog and that’s what he does. Well, rappin’ is what I do, so I can be under any [situation]—I could be dyin’, I could be just wakin’ up, I could be at my happiest moment, my saddest moment, I could be speechless, I could be voiceless, but I could still rap. That’s what I do. So that’s why I really don’t use the pen and pad, ‘cuz I kind of feel like when you use the pen and pad, you’re readin’. And when you’re readin’ somethin’, man, you’re payin’ attention to what you’re readin’ instead of what you’re doin’.

IGNM: It sounds like it’s almost stream-of-consciousness for you then.

Lil’ Wayne: Yeah, exactly.

IGNM: Man, I have to write sh!t down. If I keep it in my head for too long I eventually forget it.

Lil’ Wayne: Well, see, that’s what people always ask me: ‘How come you don’t forget it?’ I really don’t know, but I always answer that with ‘Because that’s what I do. It’s my job, so it’s always on my mind.’

IGNM: Right on. So what can we expect from the new album? I’ve only heard “Bring It Back” and “Get Something.”

Lil’ Wayne: It’s my fourth solo album. I always say ‘If you’re a Lil’ Wayne fan then you can just expect more Lil’ Wayne, better Lil’ Wayne, more mature Lil’ Wayne.’ It’s crazy, man. There was a lot more thought process put into the song titles, there was a lot more thought process put into the songs. Mannie Fresh put his foot and his back into the music. Everybody else who got on the album and did anything, they did it to the best of their abilities because they not only knew that they were doin’ a song on my album, they were honored to be doin’ a song on my album, which made it all better.

IGNM: Speaking of which, who’s on the album?

Lil’ Wayne: I don’t really do any features, but as far as production you’ve got Mannie Fresh, Jazzie Pha, and a few other cats from New Orleans. But as far as featured artists on my album, you’ve got the Big Tymers, you know Mannie and Baby, maybe Juvenile, and some other Cash Money artists. Then I have my own artists. I have an R&B label called Young Money Records and I have one of my own artists on there singing.

IGNM: Who is that?Lil’ Wayne: His name is Real.

IGNM: I’m assuming since you say he’s on your R&B label, that he’s on your album doing soulful backing vocals, right?

Lil’ Wayne: Yeah, he’s doing hooks, choruses, things like that.

IGNM: What prompted you to start an R&B label?

Lil’ Wayne: Because, think about it man, there are none no more. Remember how Motown used to be just an R&B label with all the best singers? There are none like that anymore. I felt like nobody would be expecting me to come out with one, so I feel that it would be successful.

IGNM: That’s a good point. I mean there really aren’t any R&B labels out there like what Motown was back in the day. And my vision of R&B today is that it doesn’t have the same soulful grit that it did back in the day.

Lil’ Wayne: Exactly! You’re vision of R&B today would probably be a song featuring a hip-hop artist [laughs].

IGNM: Or something that is totally over-produced.

Lil’ Wayne:Exactly! Thank you, my man.

IGNM: That’s why I’ve never cottoned to modern day R&B. It’s too much like pop music. It’s not like listening to Sam Cooke or Marvin, you know?

Lil’ Wayne:Thank you!. What happens with that is that these artists today get created instead of coming up on their own. So when you’re created, man, you’re nothing less than a robot. You can only do so much, only what that robot can do. So what the game is missing is real artists.

IGNM: How do you find real artists?Lil’ Wayne: I mean my first artist, his name is Real: R-E-A-L. How I found him, I was in the mall shoppin’ and he walked up to me. He didn’t even say his name, he didn’t say hello, the guy just started singin’. And I was like ‘Damn!’ No, as a matter of fact, he was in the same store as me and he was singin’, but not to me. He was singin’ as he was lookin’ at his stuff, but when he saw me he came up to me and started singin’ the same song. I had a show the next day and I asked him to perform with me at the show. And I saw that he wasn’t scared and he sounded good in front of a crowd. Plus he was soulful. The way that you find real soulful music is, that the music that Marvin and Al and all them people used to sing was about things they were goin’ through. And with Real, he’s from the hood and he goes through things every day. He’s got child support problems just like regular people, he’s got girl problems, he’s got problems on the block, he’s got parole officer problems, he did three years in jail, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s soul, it’s real music comin’ out. I know that for a fact. That’s why I’m getting’ behind him. I know whatever he’s sayin’ is truthful, is real. And as long as it’s real, if it’s not excepted, who cares? It’s real.

IGNM: Right on. I’m stoked about this. I mean it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit if you said you were starting your own rap label, you know?

Lil’ Wayne: Yeah, I know [laughs].

IGNM: Now if you had told me that you were starting a Death Metal label, then I really would have flipped.

Lil’ Wayne: [laughs] Yeah [laughs].

IGNM: Back to the new album, since this is the fourth one, do you think about what the public’s expectations are gonna be when you go into the studio or do you just make stuff that you and the rest of the Cash Money crew are gonna vibe off of?

Lil’ Wayne: Kind of both. We do what we know is poppin’ out there right now, where we kind of have a feeling that the people want to hear. But we also think about what the people want to hear from us, you know what I’m sayin’? Everybody wanna hear what they want to hear. If that was the case, if we did it like that, we’d probably sound like somebody else. And that’s definitely not what we’re tryin’ to do. But we definitely think about what they’re listening to now, what’s hot out right now, and how do we sound doin’ our own way of what’s hot. We do what people want us to do, but our way.

IGNM: I’m curious, as you get older do you have any plans to ditch the ‘Lil’ at the beginning of your name?

Lil’ Wayne: I’m a Junior. So that’s my name, Lil’ Wayne. That will never change.

IGNM: You got a line at the end of “Bring It Back” where you say “…best rapper alive since the best rapper retired…” That’s a pretty heavy boast to lay down on wax. Do you think anybody is gonna test you on that?

Lil’ Wayne: We have yet to see. If anybody does try to test me, then I swear to you I’ll eat ‘em for breakfast and I’ll tell you how it was next interview.

IGNM: Will you eat ‘em with milk?

Lil’ Wayne: Naw, I don’t need nothin’ to digest it down with. They’re weaklings [laughs].

credit – music.ign