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Lil Wayne: Industrial Psychology :: Presiding over Cash Money Records should've tipped us off, but why does it hurt our feelings that Lil' Wayne—URB's rapper of the year—is only in it for the scrilla?

By Brandon Perkins   Photography by RJ Shaughnessy

03/28/07 :: URB 142

The snarl was familiar before I ever put my head on the platinum-buttoned ocelot fur couch. "Get money. Fuck bitches." Eyes closed, I know that my diamond-grilled therapist isn't taking notes and I wonder how much he's even listening, while he hypnotically repeats the mantra—Get money. Fuck bitches. Get money. Fuck bitches—each syllable gurgling like a telltale heart gone hood. I don't remember if I asked him about the major general of the Queen's Navy chasing me up the mountain or when I diffused a bomb while slathered in white paint or why, in my waking hours, I would actually break up with perfectly scrumptious, wifey-material because she once wore a silly hat. I really don't think it'd matter. Dr. Weezy F. Baby (please say the motherfuckin'. . .Ph.D) has one lesson: Get money. Fuck bitches. And that's why I'm on his decadent couch and he's not taking notes.

"I need something, anything, other than those four words, damn it!" I scream. My outburst shocks me, but it has a point and I intend to pursue it. "What about the dreams and the sweats? What about the deer-skin lamps with the fangs?"

Dr. Weezy F. Baby stays silent.

In reality, Lil' Wayne (aka Weezy F. Baby) isn't licensed to call me crazy, at least not yet. He is studying psychology (or maybe political science?) at the University of Houston and, according to his last report card, he's "on the fuckin' honor roll." Wayne has his own distorted, nonsensical dreams too, and one is to be a celebrity psychologist "'cause they pay." Get Money. Fuck Bitches.

If we look only at the music released from December 6, 2005 to November 21, 2006, then the boasts of this self-proclaimed "best rapper alive" are dead-on. The former date marks the release of his fifth solo album, Tha Carter II, and the latter is (fittingly) when his hero, Jay-Z, officially ends his retirement—but for exactly 350 days, it's not even a question. [Editor's note: It may remain true to this day.] No one rapped better than Lil' Wayne over this period. Carter II was immediately lauded as Wayne's magnum opus, the potential of contemporary hip-hop's most unique voice finally realized on record. Born Dwayne Michael Carter in New Orleans's famed and maimed 17th Ward, the newly named president of Cash Money Records followed Jay-Z's blueprint, mining a mixture of string-heavy soul samples and frantic club hits for quotable quips and an inexhaustible collection of danger-soaked-and artistically risky-street tales. Dedication 2, his Gangsta Grillz mixtape with DJ Drama released this summer, was even better. Tackling the most monstrous beats of the year ("Hustlin'," "What You Know") and some jaw-dropping originals ("Cannon"), Wayne tears through rap with an incalculable fervor, and by the time it's all over, Dedication 2 is easily the hip-hop album of the year. Even with just a slim case.

"Don't let that bird shit," Wayne says. "He got a weak stomach." When Dr. Baby talks, he speaks in riddle and I lose track of who's the patient between us. This is his response to another of my nightmares, and sometimes I prefer the 47-foot-tall birds pecking at the webbing of my feet, at least to this nonsense.

"What kind of grown man is petrified of birds?" I ask. "I need a real answer. I'm sick. I don't spit, I vomit. Got it? One egg short of the omelet."

He clears his throat and I sit up to hear his words of wisdom. "Fuck bitches. Get money." I lie back down and maybe lose my grip again.

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