Episode #79 | 3.27.21
Lil Wayne: Murder Squads, A Pre-Teen Suicide Attempt, a Year at Rikers and More Hits than Elvis
Listen Free
Amazon Music | iHeart | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify
In this episode
Lil Wayne grew up on the mean streets of New Orleans. His father split when he was two, and his stepdad was shot before he was a teenager. Wayne poured his pain into his rhymes and started cutting tracks for Cash Money Records, seeing hip-hop as the only way out of a violent scene. When his mother forced him to quit rapping, the only way out Wayne saw was suicide. Miraculously, he survived and went on to become one of the most successful artists of all-time, staying true to his roots throughout all his triumphs and tribulations.
Sources
Hip-Hop Evolution Season 4, Netflix
Lil Wayne: An Unauthorized Biography, by Jake Brown
Billboard: Lil Wayne on Life, Lawsuits, and the Long Road to ‘Tha Carter V’
Rolling Stone: Timeline: The Criminal History of Little Wayne
Rolling Stone: Lil Wayne Pleads Guilty to 2008 Drug Charge
Red Bull Music Academy: Beyond Soulja Slim: Remembering the Lost Heroes of New Orleans Rap
Slate:Can Lil Wayne Bring His Teeth to Prison?
TMZ: Lil Wayne: Eight Root Canals in One Sitting
HipHopDX: Lil Wayne Clarifies His Stance on Police Brutality & Racism
WBUR: Lil Waye’s Rikers Island Memoir Only Tells Half the Story
NOLA.com: The murders of 1994: Lessons from New Orleans’ deadliest year
Hollywood Today: Lil Wayne Explains How NYPD Police Framed Him With Gun
MTV: Lil Wayne’s New York Arrest: What Happened That Night?
MTV: Lil Wayne’s Jail Time: A Prison Guard Breaks Down His Routine
Exclaim: Lil Wayne, Playing With Fire
The Guardian: Rapper Lil Wayne Begins One-Year Prison Term
The Undefeated: Jail Changed Lil Wayne
NME: What We Learned About Jail From Lil Wayne’s Prison Diary
Complex: 40 Things You Didn’t Know About Lil Wayne
Complex: Rappers Break Down Lil Wayne’s Lasting Impact
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak