Photo Credit: Lil Wayne/Instagram
It seems today that the rap industry greats of this generation were either groomed by Lil Wayne (see Drake and Nicki Minaj) or they were influenced by him. That’s why that declaration by him of being the greatest rapper alive back in ’05 panned out to be true no matter who doubted those words then or now. The New Orleans rapper just turned 40 today and deserves his flowers for his hard work. During a summer appearance on the podcast “On The Guest List,” rapper Ice Cube did just that by claiming “It’s hard to beat Lil Wayne,” when asked who his favorite rappers are.
“His metaphors are otherworldly. As far as lyrics and can make hits, you know,” Ice Cube said. “Has been copied all these years and nothing but clones of Lil Wayne at the end of the day. So I just think, besides myself. I’ve done so much for the culture, but uh, yeah, yeah he’s dope.”
DJ Drama reflected on the origin of the Greatest Rapper Alive skit from the Dedication 2 mixtape at this year’s BET Awards saying that he wrote the script for the track. “At the time, that was coming off of Hov saying, hands down, he was the greatest. Here comes Tunechi stakin’ the claim and putting the crown on him,” Drama told HipHopDX. “I actually wrote the script out for him to have that conversation. He dedicated that to me when he discussed that. That was me almost doing an interview on the tape for him to get into that mode to say how he felt about being the best rapper alive.”
On the track you could hear Wayne saying, “I don’t think I’m better than anybody personally, I don’t think I’m better than anybody spiritually … but as far as this rap thing, I think I am better than everybody. I’m a competitor. I hope everybody else feels the same way about their craft.”
That line has certainly stood the test of time. Happy birthday, Weezy.
