Lil Wayne Says He Never Got Paid For Any Mixtape

”That’s what it’s always been: an outlet for me.”

Along with dropping his long-awaited LP, Funeral, Lil Wayne appeared on REVOLT’s Drink Champs, where he revealed that he hasn’t profited off his run of 20 mixtapes.

“I’ve never been paid for a mixtape, and I refuse,” he said. “I’ve never been paid for none of my mixtapes. That’s what it’s always been: an outlet for me.” The host posits that the mixtapes are his “freedom,” to which he agrees.

When asked whose idea was to “go the mixtape route,” Wayne says it was his own idea and explained why he felt the need to do it.

“In New Orleans, we had a way of rap. We had a way of rapping—and it’s still to this day,” he said. “We got bounce music, but it wasn’t bounce. I’m talking about just rap. We had a way of rapping. We talk about a certain thing. We say it in a certain way.”

Wayne explained that he was a fan of East Coast rappers like NORE and JAY-Z’s but Cash Money head honcho Birdman wasn’t familiar with those kinds of artists and uninterested in that style of rap. Weezy compared coastal rap styles, noting how back then, “West Coast had their thing, and it was almost like it was forbidden for them to say ‘son’ or ‘kid.’”

He noted the difference in his style of rapping on records as opposed to rapping for his friends at school. He pointed to his opening lines on B.G.’s “Ride 2 Night” as a typical New Orleans style:

Then he demonstrated how he incorporated coastal styles into his flow at school. “But at school, I’m about the, ‘Look, son, duh duh duh.’” He ended up using mixtapes as an outlet for his other styles and noted, “You could just put it out on a CD and give them out and see what it do."

Wayne dropped his last mixtape, Dedication 6: Reloaded, back in January 2018.

Elsewhere in the interview, he spoke about JAY-Z’s reaction to “Dough Is What I Got,” which appeared on the December 2006 mixtape, Lil Weezy Ana as well as Da Drought 3.

The New Orleans rapper freestyled over the beat to Jay’s “Show Me What You Got” with such skill, it made the latter MC question his place in the game. “When he rapped on ‘Show Me What You Got,’ I had to take a long walk and look at myself in the mirror,” Jay wrote in texts shared on the show. “I said, ‘Are you sure you still got this?’”

In response, Wayne told the Drink Champs hosts: “He didn’t say that part. He just let me know, ‘Boy, you’re coming for me.’”

Coincidentally, on “Dough Is What I Got,” Wayne alluded to the percieved differences between East Coast and Southern rappers, listing a number of famous NY rap groups while spitting:

Gotta talk about the flow ’cause you is concerned
Only down-south rapper could’ve been in The Firm
Or The Commission or Wu-Tang, nigga
Tryna tell you I can kick it like Liu Kang, nigga

- Genius