Latest / DISGRACELAND / Lil Wayne: Murder Squads, A Pre-Teen Suicide Attempt, a Year at Rikers and More Hits than Elvis

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Lil Wayne: Murder Squads, A Pre-Teen Suicide Attempt, a Year at Rikers and More Hits than Elvis · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of double Elvis. Stories about Lil
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Wayne are insane. He attempted suicide by shooting himself in
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the chest when he was just twelve years old. His
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: stepfather was violently murdered. He was a child star, and later,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: while one of the biggest stars on the planet, he
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: was imprisoned for a year's time. Lil Wayne was raised
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: on the streets of New Orleans during a point in
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that city's history when the murder rates skyrocketed in neighborhoods
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: were terrorized by kill squads patrolling NOLA with murder blazonly
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: spray painted across gang members' vehicles to leave no doubt
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to their intentions. Lil Wayne overcame all of that and
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: more to become one of the most successful hip hop
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: artists of all time, an artist with more hits than Elvis, Yes, Elvis,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and an artist that to this day still makes great music.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: That music I played for you at the top of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the show that wasn't great music. That was a preset
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: loop from my mellotron called Coleco Sneak MK one. I
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to like a G six by Far East Movement featuring
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the Cataracts and dev And why would I play you
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that specific slice of subserve sip and cheese? Could I
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: afford it? Because that was the number one song in
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: America on November fourth, twenty ten, And that was the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: day Lil Wayne was released from Rikers Island prison for
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: gun charges, proving once again the Little Wayne cannot be
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: counted out on this episode, an attempted suicide, a violent.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Murder, a year in Rikers and the irrepressible Little Wayne.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this this disgraceland hip hop phenon,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne was glued to his television set. His Boston
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Red Sox were nearly dead bottom of the night, three
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: outs away from a humiliating American League Championship Series sweep
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: at the hands of their hated rivals, the vaunted New
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: York Yankees. Yankees closer Marianna Riverer, with his deadly cut fastball,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: was more of an assassin. There was a little hope,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: but then a leadof lock to Red Sox seven hole
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: hitter Kevin Malar, and suddenly there was life life for
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: future Red Sox fan Lil Wayne too. Even though he
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: lived in one of the deadliest cities in the world,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: New Orleans, except his name wasn't yet Lo Wayne. It
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: was Dwayne Michael Carter Junior. And he wasn't even close
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to being the international hip hop multi platinum sensation he
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: would become in the early twenty first century. How he
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: became a Red Sox fan, the world still isn't sure.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: But back in the early nineties, he was just another
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: kid knocking around New Orleans, the home of bounce music,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a speaker knocking form of hip hop that was uniquely Southern,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: up tempo, big bass, brass band hooks, marty garras, Indian chants,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: call and response choruses, party rhymes, street smart rhymes, booty raps,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the torque, the clap. But lyrics about the many glories
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: of the many fine asses out shaking it on New
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Orleans dance floors soon gave way to lyrics more reflective
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of the violent reality encompassing the city. In nineteen ninety four,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: in New Orleans, the murder rate reached a staggering four
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty four people. One of the unfortunate victims
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: was thirty two year old Kim Groves. She had recently
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: filed a complaint against New Orleans police officer Lend Davis.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: She saw Davis pistol with a nine year old in
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: her neighborhood. A nine year old Kim couldn't look the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: other way, so she went to the cops. A day later,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: her body was found a block from her home in
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the Lower ninth Ward, with the thirty two caliber police
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: issued bullet in her skull. That's just one example of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the extreme violence and prevailing lawlessness of New Orleans. In
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the early nineties, gang violence was sweeping New Orleans right
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: alongside the consistent spread of crack cocaine. Notorious METS gang
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: members terrorized New Orleans citizens with their murderous ways, rolling
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: through the city in their infamous black pickup truck brazenly
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: spray painted with murder across the side. The kill truck
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: was used for just that, for killing. Whenever you saw
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the truck out on the streets, you knew a body
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: was about to Dropbody's dropping was a regular occurrence, and
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the rising New Orleans murder rate of the early nineties
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: spawned a strange T shirt ritual. Everywhere you'd look, you'd
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: see the T shirts of the dead on the backs
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of locals remembrance teas printed up to honor the victims
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of gang violence with their pictures, usually some sort of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: biblical quote in a parting message from loved ones in
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: memory of Key Loo g rest in Peace unl V
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yellow Boy Forever a G. Pimp Daddy, Key Loo g
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: un l V Yellow Boy Pimp Daddy. Three of New
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Orleans rising hip hop stars, each ascending in accordance with
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: both the rise of Bouds music and the New Orleans
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: murder rate starbaund but Street Born UNLV. Yellow Boy minced
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: no words about where he was from or what was
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: on his mind, like most people in New Orleans at
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the time murder. In one of his early rhymes on
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: him in the River, Yellow unambiguously threatened fellow rapper Mystical's life,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: pledging to dump his corpse in a record label owner's backyard.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Yellow was also remembered to have shot up the house
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of Cash Money Records label boss Brian Williams aka Birdman,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: supposedly going as far as to Pistol with him. Yellow
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Boy died unexpectedly of gunshot wounds at twenty three years old,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: sitting in his car. Pimped ad he met a similar fate,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: murdered at eighteen, shot in cold blood key Log, the
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: same shot in his house. He was only twenty. They
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: would all die, but Dwayne Michael Carter would live, but
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: not without pain. His father split when he was two
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: years old. He dealt with it from before he could remember.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Wasn't so bad though. He and his mother had Rabbit,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Reginald McDonald, his stepdad. Rabbit held it down on the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: home front and stood tall out on the block. Every
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: morning Dwayne, who is now calling himself Wayne, dropped the
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: d protest of his father's abandonment his father, who shared
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: the same name with him. Every morning Wayne's mom would
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: get up and go to work as a cook. Wayne
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: would get up and ditch school and hit the corner,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: and Rabbit would get up and hit the corner too,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a different corner with the ogs, while Wayne kept his
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: corner with the young geez. The message, however, was clear,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Like stepfather, like son, Wayne and Rabbit connected. Rabbit was
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: only in his mid twenties while Wayne was entering high school,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and the generation gap barely registered. Neither did the notion
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: of being a child. Regardless, Rabbit was a strong parental
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: influence on little Wayne. They had a connection. Wayne had
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: someone to look up to, to live up to, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: perhaps more important, someone to look out for him on
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the streets. But that wouldn't last. The truck rolled up
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: on Rabbit fast, just like the jump out boys from
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: seventeenth in High Grove. Whoever these dudes were, they weren't
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: fucking around. Before Rabbit knew it, the dudes in the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: truck were out on the curb outside the club with him.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Their hands were on him quickly, and they shoved him
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: in the front seat, jumped in behind him, slammed the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: door shut, screeched off, hid a nearly abandoned gas station
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: a couple blocks away, threw Rabbit out unto the ground,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and pumped seven shots into him. He couldn't take all
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: of them if you could. Rabbit died instantly for what
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: reason no one knew, especially not little Wayne Carter, who
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: not only lost his dad but now just lost his stepdad.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Wayne poured his pain into his new passion, rapping. He
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: put together rhymes in his head. He saw it as
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a possible path, if not a way out, then at
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: least a way towards something, and any path involving hip
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: hop in New Orleans in the early nineties went nowhere
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: without first going through the doors of Cash Money Records.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne somehow hustled up label owner Birdman William's home
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: phone number and started freestyling raps onto his voicemail machine,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and this led to an invite to Cash Money's offices.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Wayne's teenage charisma and confidence landed him a gig as
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Birdman's errand boy, and soon enough his talent as an
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: MC despite his young age, led to a record deal
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: with Cash Money. His dreams were coming true, but his
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: mom would have none of it. Hip hop was as
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: violent as the corner in New Orleans. It was all
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the same scene, the same violent scene. His mom laid
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: down the law. No more rapping, no more Birdman, no
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: more dreams of a hip hop career. She had a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: dead boyfriend and wasn't about to have a dead son.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It was crushing. Wayne loved his mom, but he loved
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: hip hop, and now it was being taken away from him,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: just like his stepdad had been and his dad before that.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Wayne was miserable, angry, confused in New Orleans, a city
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: where it seemed the only way out was in a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: body bag. Wayne had found a way potentially in hip
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: hop via his talent, and now that dream was crushed,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: he wasn't going to just stand by and let that happened.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: He went hunting for the gun. Rabbit's gun, the blue
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: steel Taurus nine millimeter. He found it in his mother's bedroom.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: He had it back to his own room, jacked the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: volume on his stereo. The speaker's bled with the scorched
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: feedback of his favorite band, Nirvana. He raised the pistol
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: to his chest, pushed the barrel hard into his skin, steady.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: The finger on the trigger, closed his eyes and pulled.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: Remarkably.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: The Red Sox were back down by one. In the
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: bottom of the ninth, Speedy Dave Roberts entered to pinch
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: run for Boston.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Bill Miller was at the plate.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Roberts leaned into a big lead off for his base, stealing.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: On the mind of Socks fans.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Miller took the pitch. Roberts took off for a second.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: The Yankees throw from the plate was late late late
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: late wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: wait wait wait.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Late late late late late late lately, and the Red
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Sox were still alive. So too was Lil Wayne, even
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: though he just shot himself. He was just twelve years old,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: lying on his bedroom floor with a bullet in his chest,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: alive but barely. New Orleans PD were on the scene
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: before the paramedics. Four cops entered the bedroom. Three of
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: them immediately started searching for drugs and weapons, ignoring the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: near dead kid on the ground with a fresh hole
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: in his chest struggling to breathe. But one cop, the
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: one they called Uncle Bob, got down on his knees
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: with Little Wayne began comforting him while sussing out the damage.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: One of the other cops radioed in for staff on
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the ambulance. He told Uncle Bob to chill, the cavalry
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: was on the way. Uncle Bob told him the fuck
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: off and heroically picked Lil Wayne up and carried him
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: out to his own off duty vehicle, placing him gently
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: in the back seat and high tailing it off to
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the hospital on his own. Any further delay waiting on
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: paramedics would have likely ended with Lil Wayne dying before
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: even making it to the er. The doctors barely saved
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: his life. Lil Wayne would not soon forget Uncle Bob.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Years later, on stage at the twenty eighteen BET Hip
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Hop Awards, Lil Wayne, while now a star, accepting his
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: career recognition I Am hip Hop Award, told the world
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: about Uncle Bob. He brought me to the hospital. He
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: refused to wait. He kicked in the doors, say you
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: got to do whatever you've got to do and make
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: sure this child make it. Not only did he refuse
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to sit, not only didn't he give me to the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: doctors and just leave, he stayed and made sure I
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: made it. After his botch's suicide attempt, Wayne committed himself
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to hip hop. Mom still didn't like it, but she'd
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: rather have him alive and rapping than dead. He'd got
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the hook up with cash Money Young, but label boss
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Birdman knew that such raw talent had to be groomed.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne had been rapping since he was nine and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: was signed to twelve, but Birdman was in no rush
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to put him on the mic. Lil Wayne chomped at
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the bit, performing verses on command, seeking features, collaborators, anything
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to get over and out of the streets. There were
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: still guns at home, and that was common sense in
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: his neighborhood, Hollygrove, and when his mom caught him packing
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a gun to take to school. She stopped fighting him.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: He could spend his days of cash Money instead of school,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and there was no resisting it. Music was school now,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: music was life, and Birdman would now fill in the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: role of father figure, guiding Wayne to perform a featured
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: verse on tracks with several groups within Cash Money until
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: together they settled on a winning formula, The Hot Boys,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne, Juvenile Turk, and BG, backed by Cash Money,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Secret Sauce production by Whispers Sir Manny Fresh. The Bounce
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: inflicted the southern rap that Hop Boys dropped on their
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: debut album in nineteen ninety seven, Get It How You Live,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: lived up to Cash Money's rep as New Orleans escape Route.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: The record was a regional smash and charted nationally at
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: twenty two on the Billboard RB Hip Hop Chart. For
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: the first time, fourteen year old Little Wayne could see
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel. Except as a miner,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Wayne's deal with Cash Money was a deal with his
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: mom too. She had a co sign his contracts and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: controlled his finances, so even with his advance and features
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: under his belt, he was still on the corners, hustling weed,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: cocaine and crack for spending money long after he'd signed.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: The streets had a gravity to them. They rooted Little
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Wayne's fearlessness and the violence all around him made him hungry.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: He made himself a promise he'd know he got out
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: for real, we could buy his MoMA house. Wayne gripped
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: his forearm, picked at his elbow with frayed nerves. He
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: swayed back and forth, and the hot lights beat down
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: on him from above. He was backstage, leaning first to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: one side, then the other, slick with sweat from just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: performing Swagger Like Us with Ti jay Z, Kanye and Mia,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: but now they were reading off his category. It all
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: came down to this February eighth, two thousand and nine,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the fifty first Grammy Awards. But Wayne had bought his
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: mom a house long ago. Cash Money had fulfilled his promise,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and his strategy of always being available for that next
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: feature paid off. By the time of his first solo album,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: The Block Is Hot, in ninety nine, anticipation had built,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and the debut went platinum. His series of albums titled
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: The Carter beginning in two thousand and four, had each
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: blown up bigger than the last, and he was now
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: cash Money's signature artist with all the club that came
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: with it. Tonight was his coronation. The Carter three was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: nominated for six Grammys. It was a force of nature,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: just like Lol Wayne. It had debuted at number one
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: on the Billboard two hundred, sold a million copies in
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: its first week of release, closed out the year on
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: its way to being certified triple platinum, and produced four singles,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: including A Millie and Lollipop, which had already won Best
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Song. On this evening,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: will I M And T Payne were presenting Best Rap
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Album Lou Wayne was up against jay Z nas Ti
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in Lube Fiasco, a Murderer's Row of two thousand and nine.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: MC's Wayne was only a few years from surpassing Elvis
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Presley as the male artist with the most entries on
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the Billboard Hot one hundred, but in two thousand and nine,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: winning Best Rap Album would be the crown jewel. T
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Payne read his name and Wayne ran up on the stage,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: jumped into the air and knocked his heels together. His friends, family,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and collaborators flooded the stage. It was his ultimate triumph
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: so far, but it was bittersweet. After so many years
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: on the come up, Wayne thought he had finally escaped
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the specter of street trouble. But beyond the glamour of
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Grammy Night, Wayne knew what was coming for him next sentencing.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word word word. Dave
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Roberts socks pinch runner stole second. They were down by
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: one bottom of the ninth. The Yankees were up three
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: games to none. Winning would humiliate the Red Sox and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: send the Yankees to the World Series.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: The tension couldn't have been higher.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Bill Miller was at the plate, Riviera made his pitch,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: the ball shot off the bat up the middle, Roberts
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: tore ass toward the plate. The throw from Bernie Williams
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: again late, and the Red Sox died the game.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Playing for its high. Wasn't the Red Sox endgame? And
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: now that was it. Lil Wayne's his mindset was to win,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to overcome whatever obstacles presented themselves, staying alive in the
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: murderer's hometown, the murder of his stepfather, surviving a gunshot
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: to the chest, and becoming one of the biggest selling
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: hip hop stars on the planet. Except Lil Wayne was
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: being taken out of the game. He sat in the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: dentist's chair. Root canals were supposed to be scarier than
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: they actually were, but not today. This hurt like a motherfucker.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just one root canal, it was eight in
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: one sitting, eight root canals in an eight hour sitting.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: To repair his two thing plants, and to repair his
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: real teeth that for the last few years had been
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: capped in gold and diamonds one hundred and fifty grand worth,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the grill had to go. One hundred and fifty thousand
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: dollars worth of diamonds and gold sparkling in his mouth
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to cut it. In a Riker's Island prison,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and there weren't any official rulings on the books about
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: dental in plants in prison, but possession of jewelry was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: regulated in order to avoid the sticky situation of using
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: it the barter for contraband or sex. Riker's inmates were
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: restricted to only wearing watches that were valued at less
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: than fifty dollars, and wedding rings valued it no more
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: than one hundred and fifty dollars. Religious necklaces were allowed again,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but nothing costing more than fifty bucks. So if you
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to look like a wanna be wise guy, you
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: were all set. But if you wanted to rock a grill,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you were as good as a marked man. So Lil
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Wayne had to lose the grill, so much so that
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: his prison sentence was postponed in order to accommodate the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: trip to the dentist prison, which is where he was headed.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: The weapons charge, at least in the eyes of the court,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: was legit, even though Lil Wayne and most everyone else
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: knew it was bullshit. Twelve months a full year for
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: having a gun, a gun that wasn't even on him,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that was quote unquote in his possession, and by possession
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: they meant on his tour bus in the general proximity
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of him, but not on his body. A year for that,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the sentence seemed entirely fucked up, even though Lil Wayne
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: had another pending charge, this one in Arizona after police
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: dogs had sniffed out weed, ecstasy, cocaine, guns, and twenty
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: grand in cash in his tour bus in two thousand
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: and eight, But that was a separate case which would
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: whittle down to three years parole in no jail time,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: so he shouldn't have mattered. Lil Wayne knew what was up.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: He was headed to Rikers because the judge, the cops, whoever,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: they had headlines to grab, and that's what the hassle
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: was about on that night, headlines. It wasn't about some
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: trumped up gun charge. It was about Lil Wayne, a
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: New Orleans rapper in New York City, headlining a concert
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: venue for the first time while beefing with New York's
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: top MC JYZ. The two men with the surname of
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Carter had a long history of respect and beef. Lil
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Wayne rapped that he was the best rapper alive since
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the best rapper retired on two thousand and fours bring
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: it back. As for the current beef, most of it
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: seemed to stem from out of context quotes and hip
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: hop mags in friendly competition. July twenty second, two thousand
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and seven, New York City's Beacon Theater, Lil Wayne at
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the top of the bill, and the city's hip hop
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: community turned up. Kanye was on his way, Khaled was
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: in the house. Jules Santana and Jah Rule were having
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a hard time getting in. IRV Gotti was pissed and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: police were everywhere out front on Broadway, mounted on horses,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: inside the door as monitoring the metal detector post roaming
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: plain closed cops pushing through the packed crab clocking for
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: indiscriminate bulges and waistlines, and at the backstage door a
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: paddock down the headliner, harassing Lil Wayne on his way
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: into the venue to perform his set. When asked about
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the show later, DJ Khaled said he felt like he
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: was going into a prison, and Lil Wayne shared the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: ill sentiment. When he first hit the stage, the harassment
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and overbearing police presence was hard to shake off. He
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: told his Rabbit audience that quote, I just went through
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the worst fucking feeling ever with the all police on stage.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: He looked defeated, disappointed, disgusting. He then leaned into it
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and this may be one of the only times you
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: see me because of how they treated me. And Wayne
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: put it behind him though, and soldiered on. Kanye hit
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the stage with him and the place lost the shit.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Cal and Santana and Ja Rule also hit the stage
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: for cameos. In the end, the show went off great
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and the performances were on fire, and the audience was ecstatic.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne had arrived in New York, but now it
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: was time to bounce lights on, hit, the bus, hit,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the hotel, party split, except that didn't happen. Lil Wayne
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and his entourage were detained before going anywhere. Almost as
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: soon as the tour bus rolled out, it was pulled
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: over by New York's finest and the cops claimed that
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: they smelled marijuana, which of course was entirely possible. When
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the cops got on the bus, they went straight for Wayne.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: It was in the back and nothing but his boxer
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: short it's amid change. The cops claimed they saw him
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: throw a Louis Vuitton bag under one of the bunks.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: In it a forty caliber handgun. Lil Wayne argued that
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: it wasn't his.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Didn't matter.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: He was hauled in and charged with the possession of
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: an illegal firearm in New York, a Class D violent felony.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: The gun wasn't his, and it was registered just not
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: to him, to his manager, not in New York and Mississippi.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: But New York prosecutors weren't playing. They went adam hard,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: seeking the maximum penalty, and Lil Wayne's lawyers knew better
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: than to tempt what at the time was the city's
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: rigid justice system. They prevailed upon Lil Wayne to take
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a plea. He did, admitting that the gun, though not
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in his possession, was within his quote unquote dominion or control,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: meaning I guess that if he wanted to pick up
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: a gun that was registered and shoot it off, he
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: had the ability to do so, which makes sense somewhat,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: but in my mind doesn't justify a year long prison sentence.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: But it didn't matter.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne, one of the most famous and successful rappers
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: on the planet at the time, was heading off to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Riker's Island prison for a year, and there was nothing
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that he, or his dentist or anyone else could do
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Bottom of the twelfth part of the order, and the
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: temperature continued to fall in Boston as fans heart rates
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: rose into the bottom of the twelfth A four to
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: four game, a two to one pitch made Ramirez got
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: it going with a hit. The Red Sox had their
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: leadoff man on, David Ortiz was now at the plate
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: one on no outs, four to four tie, a Yankee
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: win and they go to the World Series.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: A Red Sox win and they avoid the sweep.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: The pitch to Big Pappy David Ortiz took it deep
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: into the right field. Sheffield went back but home run
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: the Red Sox one overcame certain defeat and lived to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: fight another day.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: That's all Lil Wayne wanted to live to fight another day.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: He'd done it before, he'd do it again. The prison
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: was hard, boring as fuck, but Lil Wayne was doing
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: his time, writing out his one year sentence, hoping for
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: time off for good behavior. Real jail was no joke,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't all bad. There were little things to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: help make it a little easier. The old dude across
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the hall looked out for him. We got an extra
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: sugar for his coffee every morning, and he had an
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: MP three player he could mess with that mess with
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: music keep his head occupied. And there was a radio
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: he could sometimes listen to ESPN and occasionally catch a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: game from his beloved Red Sox. He could be social
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: if you wanted. He ended up officiating a wedding for
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: two fellow inmates, and they decorated the cell with streamers made
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: from toilet paper, drank gatorade in celebration, and of course
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: there were visitors. Kanye Diddy and Lil Wayne's protegee Drake.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne had signed to Young Money Entertainment back in
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. He knew Drake was a star
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and on his hunch now the world knew it too.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So did Lil Wayne's girlfriend, which was the problem. It
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: was why Drake was visiting his mentor behind bars to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: tell him in person what Wayne already knew. But the
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: rumors claimed that yes he Drake was sleeping with Little
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Waite's girl. It's stung, but Wayne would have to overcome worse.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: He was now in solitary, forced to do his remaining
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: month by himself for possession of a legal contraband the
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: MP three player. Solitary was brutal. Too much time alone.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne lived in the moment, always one minute to
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the next. He relied on instinct. The universe had a plant,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: God had a plan. If there was a road map,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: he'd never seen it. But alone hold up in the darkness,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: there were visions, violent visions, a bus barreling onto an
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Atlanta highway through a spray of gunfire, Bullets flying everywhere, screaming, crying,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: screeching tires, fear everywhere, but not in Lo Wayne's heart.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: It beats steady, true, rampid bullets weren't anything he couldn't overcome,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and the bus would come to a stop, and so
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: too with the shooting, and he'd be fine, better than before, stronger, smarter,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: smart enough.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: To sniff out.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: A snake in his midst. A vision of a slithering,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: money grubbing reptile working his way through Lol Wayne's house
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: on the outside, a mentor, a father figure, a trader
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: in his midst stealing right out from under his nose.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Millions gone in a record label advance, embezzlement, the running
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of Lil Wayne's hard earned cash after Lil Wayne built
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: cash money records. It couldn't be. It was too far
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: fetched a vision, say it ain't so time would tell.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, though, time was all that mattered, doing
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the time, not letting it do you overcoming. Enduring Baseball
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: is an endurance sport. One hundred and sixty two games
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: in a season played over six months longer if you
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: make the playoffs. It's a grueling stretch. It's rare, if
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: near impossible, for a player to go an entire season
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: without some sort of injury. Some play through the pain,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: most don't. The great ones of course do. There's a
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: rhythm to a baseball season. It starts out easy, languid,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: almost picks up steam, dips into a respite in July,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: comes back furious in the late summer months, and speeds
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: into the fall postseason on fumes. There are nine innings
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: per game in baseball, and unlike any other sport, there
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: is no clock. You play until you finish, until someone
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: comes out on top, no matter the time, no matter
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the number of extra innings. Unlike in other sports, there
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: is more at stake for quitters. Arguably, you've invested too
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: much of your time and effort to get to this
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: point in the game and give up. October seventeenth, two
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: thousand and four, the Boston Red Sox, the law Wayne's team,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: was five hours plus and to an extra innings win
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: or go home game. Again. It's the vaunted New York Yankees,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a team that had the socks number for the better
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: part of a century. Mid October, almost a full three
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: extra weeks of postseason playing time. On top of the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: extra innings, they were tired down three games to none.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: The world encounted them out. Even their fans encounted them out.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: If they tell you otherwise, they're lying. Losing was expected
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: at this point for the players, giving up. Losing at
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: that laid point in the game would have gone unnoticed.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: It would have been the easy thing to do. But
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the Red Sox clawed, scraped, and fought their way back,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: tying the game in the ninth and eventually winning it
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: on a David Ortiz walk off home run in the twelve.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: There was no giving up, because giving up meant giving
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: up too much, too much time, too much invested energy.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just a game, it wasn't just a season.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: It wasn't even the romanticized overcoming of some silly, non
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: existent curse. It was pride, a sense of self, a
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: once placed in the world, at the top, overcoming the odds,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a world beater inherit will to not give up, to overcome.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne had that same will. It would have been
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: easy to fall into bad habits in prison, to get high,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: fuck off, fight whatever. And there were numerous ways for
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne to have taken his eye off the ball,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: to extend to stay at Riker's, but that wasn't going
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to happen. He was neither above the law nor under
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the influence. He had exerted so much effort, so much
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: of himself into his career. By that point, even if
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: he was in prison, there was too much at stake.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: He'd been rapping since he was nine, and rapping for
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: cash money since he was twelve. He'd been famous his
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: entire adult life, and for part of his childhood. He'd
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: won four Grammys, released multiple platinum albums, escaped Hollygrove to
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: toward the world.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: There was too much on the line now.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: He had too many people counting on him, everyone at
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Young Money Entertainment, the label he had founded a few
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: years earlier. His family, his four children, their four different mothers,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: all relied on him. So there was nothing he was
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: going to do to send him back, and there was
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: nobody or nothing that he was going to let keep
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: him down this deep into the game. Not the vicious
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: murder of a father figure, not his father abandoning him,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: not a third father figure's betrayal, or the betrayal of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: a protege, not even a gunshot when moved.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: To the Chester.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Eight months in Rikers, and especially not a month in
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: solitary confinement at the end of his stint, none of
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: him was gonna do. Lil Wayne in On November fourth,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: twenty ten, Lil Wayne walked out of prison and into
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: the rest of his life, once again a free man.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Because giving in, giving up it wasn't in him. For
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Lil Wayne, it would have been nothing short of disgraceful.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgrace, all right. It
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: was reported in late January of twenty twenty one, after
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: the writing and recording of this episode, that Lil Wayne
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: was granted a pardon by then President Donald J. Trump
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: felony gun charge a different felony gun charge than the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: one depicted in this episode, a felony gun charge springing
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: from an arrest in late twenty nineteen, a felony gun
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: charge that very likely would have landed Lil Wayne, a
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: convicted felon, in prison again, but this time for up
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to ten years. It was also reported that after his
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: arrest and before the twenty twenty presidential election, Lil Wayne,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: ever the self preservationists and not one to give up,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: was able to arrange a meeting with the then president
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: at his golf course in Miami. By all accounts, the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: president was charmed by the Megawatt rap star, and so
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: the rap star was pardoned and therefore once again free
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: to be Lil Wayne. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: this episode can be found on the show notes page
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: at disgracelamdpod dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it, and if not, you can become a
• 33:01
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• 33:06
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• 33:10
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• 33:14
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• 33:18
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• 33:23
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• 33:26
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• 33:30
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• 33:37
  Speaker 1: He then Man