Lil Wayne churns out music in his sleep, so it should come as no surprise that the rap veteran loses track of his own accomplishments sometimes.
2023 marks the 15-year anniversary of his landmark album, Tha Carter III, which was home to colossal hits like “A Milli,” “Lollipop” and “Mrs. Officer,” to name a few, and has gone down as one of the most impactful Hip Hop packages of the 21st century. Yet, it’s nothing more than a footnote to Wayne in the grand scheme of things.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the New Orleans native spoke about the career-defining project with indifference.
“I’m going to be so honest with you: I don’t know Tha Carter III, Tha Carter II, Tha Carter One from Tha Carter IV. And that’s just my God’s honest truth,” he admitted.
“You could lie, you could ask me [about] such and such song, I wouldn’t even know what we talking about. So it holds no significance to me at all.”
Wayne’s comments echo those from an interview he did with Fox Sports’ Darnell Smith two years ago, where he didn’t even recognize the lyrics to one of his biggest songs when they were recited back to him.
Though Lil Wayne’s career started over a decade before the release of Tha Carter III, the album gave him his first taste of global acclaim. The commercial impact of the album — which topped the Billboard 200 with over a million first-week sales — shot him into space.
When asked if the widespread success of the 2008 release has any bearing on his memory of the album, he responded: “Nah, I don’t even know if that’s when Tha Carter III came out. That’s how much I don’t know. I work every day, bro — every single day.”
He added: “I always look at it as the curse part of the gift and the curse. I believe that [God] blessed me with this amazing mind, but would not give [me] an amazing memory to remember this amazing shit.”
The 40-year-old rapper, whose name is a permanent fixture in the G.O.A.T. debate, has had one of the most prolific careers in Hip Hop.
So far, he has 13 studio albums, 5 EPs and a whopping 18 mixtapes, with two new albums — Tha Carter VI and I Am Not a Human Being III — reportedly currently in the works.
Lil Wayne recently wrapped up his Welcome to Tha Carter Tour. Though he could’ve easily sold out arenas, the rap legend took a different route this time and performed at smaller venues to offer fans a more personal experience.
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