Sitting down for an interview with Taylor Rooks, Lil Wayne mentioned that he comes from a battle-rap era and how that kind of competitive spirit inspired his artistry. Eminem being one of the jaw-breakers of the underground hip-hop battle scene in the 90s, the alleged rap God immediately came to his mind.
It was a captivating interview as the 5-time Grammy Award winner was eager to share and spoke about his collaboration with Kevin Durant, his rap prowess compared to LeBron James, and how his experience over the span of his career has honed his songwriter-rapper skills. Wayne elaborated on how much the music industry has changed and his desire to perform at the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show.
Weezy expressed his love and pride for Drake’s success and offered some advice to basketball rising star, Angel Reese. The rapper deemed Ja Morant to be the next face of the NBA. At one point in the interview, Lil Wayne described the cutthroat nature of hip-hop and brought up Eminem as a striking example.
I was around when rap music was competitive. I was around when there was such thing called ‘battle rap.’ That was an art form of rap where I can literally…It was almost, almost comedic. What I mean by that is, a comedian can, you know, they roast each other. They don’t mean nothing by it.
Weezy elaborated further on the indelible role battle rap played in hip-hop culture:
Battle rap was the same. You got these people. They standing in the circle and you know… Eminem might take your head off about something you felt great about yourself in the mirror before you got there, you know, and then they come back and do the same. So, that was an art form. They had people that, to this day, there’s battle raps that went down, and they are not filmed, they aren’t recorded and there are legends come out of that because of that. We don’t have that no more. I was around during that.
