It went double-platinum but the rapper was still unknown to Middle America, since his hardcore rhymes and the rough Cash Money sound had not yet crossed over. Wayne launched his solo career a year later with the album Tha Block Is Hot, featuring the hit single title track. In 1998, Lil Wayne appeared on Juvenile's hit single "Back That Thing Up," or "Back That Azz Up" as it appeared on Juvie's album 400 Degreez. Mainstream distribution helped that year's Hot Boys album Guerrilla Warfare to reach the number one spot on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Two years later, Cash Money signed a distribution deal with the major-label Universal. He joined B.G., Juvenile, and Young Turk for another Fresh project, the teen hardcore rap group the Hot Boys, who released their debut album, Get It How U Live!, in 1997. That same year, he officially took the moniker Lil Wayne, dropping the "D" from his first name in order to separate himself from an absent father. The 1997 album Chopper City was supposed to be the follow-up, but when Wayne accidentally shot himself in the chest with a 9mm pistol, it became a solo B.G. Although only B.G.'s name appeared on the cover, the 1995 album True Story has since been accepted as the B.G.'z debut album both by fans and the Cash Money label. A year later, in-house producer Mannie Fresh partnered him with the 14-year-old B.G. Combining a strong work ethic with aggressive self-promotion, the 11-year-old convinced the Cash Money label to take him on, even if it was just for odd jobs around the office. He found music was the best way to express himself, and after taking the name Gangsta D he began writing rhymes. and raised in the infamous New Orleans neighborhood of Hollygrove, Lil Wayne was a straight-A student but never felt his true intelligence was expressed through any kind of report card. Since the latter hit, Wayne has topped the Billboard 200 with the consecutive LPs Tha Carter V (2018) and Funeral (2020), and has continued to issue non-album singles and mixtapes, like his 2021 Rich the Kid collaboration Trust Fund Babies.īorn Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. Throughout the 2010s, despite numerous legal and creative battles, Wayne continued to be a regular presence on the upper reaches of the charts with albums such as Tha Carter IV (2011) and I Am Not a Human Being II (2013), additional smash singles as a headliner, and a continually lengthening list of collaborative hits, including the multi-platinum "Sucker for Pain" (for the Suicide Squad soundtrack in 2016) and "I'm the One" (headlined by DJ Khaled in 2017). A triple-platinum blockbuster, it spawned the number one pop hit "Lollipop" and the number six follow-up "A Milli," and netted three Grammy awards, including Best Rap Album. During a period of constant output, entailing not just successful full-lengths but also reputation-building mixtapes and featured appearances on pop hits like Destiny's Child's "Soldier" (2004), he reached mainstream superstar status with Tha Carter III (2008). Wayne debuted at the age of 12, received his first platinum certification five years later as a member of the Hot Boys, and immediately thereafter became a formidable solo artist with Tha Block Is Hot (1999), his first of 12 Top Ten albums on the Billboard 200. Through years of maturation and prolific output, during which the delivery of his humorous and wordplay-heavy rhymes gradually changed from ringing and pugnacious to stoned and rasped, he developed into a million-unit-selling artist with a massive body of work, one so inventive and cunning that it makes his claim of being the "best rapper alive" worth considering. Lil Wayne began his career as a near-novelty, a preteen delivering hardcore Southern hip-hop.
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