After a four-year delay, the new Lil Wayne album Tha Carter V is finally on the way.
The New Orleans rapper sat down with Billboard for a wide-ranging interview about the album, his legal battle with Bryan “Birdman” Williams and some of the difficult moments in his life.
Wayne planned to release Tha Carter V in 2014, but the album was delayed by his $51 million breach of contract lawsuit against his mentor Birdman and Cash Money Records.
The case was settled in June for an undisclosed sum, opening the door for the LP’s release. The Blast reported the settlement was for “well over $10 million.”
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Wayne told Billboard he tried not to let the years-long legal fight get to him “too much.” Instead he focused on his four children and “the confidence in knowing that there’s always a tomorrow and I’m going to make sure that tomorrow is bright.”
As part of the settlement, Weezy gained sole ownership of his longtime label, Young Money.
Now he hopes fans will embrace his long-awaited album, which is slated for release this fall.
“I don’t know what it’s setting me up for — some big comeback, or maybe some big fall back or whatever — but it’s setting me up for something, and I’m ready,” he said.
The 35-year-old rapper didn’t go into detail about the tracks on the LP, but toward the end of the interview he grabbed his phone and played a song about a suicide attempt at age 12, that he previously described as an accident.
Wayne explains on the verse that he shot himself in the chest after his mother told him he would no longer be allowed to rap.
After years of hiding the truth, he told Mack Maine, president of Young Money Entertainment, he was ready to share the story.
“He just told me one day that he was ready to address it now,” Maine told Billboard in the article. “Just being an adult, reaching a level of maturity and comfort where it’s like, ‘I want to talk about this because I know a lot of people out here might be going through that.’”
The single was originally written for the album’s 2014 release, but Wayne added new lyrics this year
after the suicides of fashion designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.
Watch the interview with Lil Wayne below:
