Lil Wayne really wanted to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Earlier this year, the Super Bowl came to New Orleans, Wayne's hometown, and he waged a public campaign to get the Halftime Show. It didn't happen. That spot instead went to Kendrick Lamar, currently at the peak of his commercial powers. When Kendrick was announced as the headliner, Wayne went on Instagram Live and spoke about his disappointment: "It hurt a whole lot... It broke me." There were rumblings that those comments might lead to a beef between Wayne and Kendrick, past collaborators and mutual admirers. That didn't happen, and Wayne and Kendrick remain cool. But in a new Rolling Stone cover story, Wayne remains resolute that the NFL "fucked up."
In the Rolling Stone feature, writer Andre Gee catches up with Wayne while he's working on his long-awaited album Tha Carter VI. It's one of these long stories that's mostly about all the writer's failed attempts to get an interview with his subject, but there are some interesting bits when Gee finally gets a chance to sit down with Wayne. Wayne reportedly recorded much of the LP with producer Wyclef Jean and with a team of New Orleans musicians that includes Jon Batiste, Ledisi, Trombone Shorty, and PJ Morton. As Wayne sits and listens to one of the tracks in the studio, Wayne says, "They coulda had some music. But instead, they got rappin'." A song later, he says, "They fucked up." ("They," Gee tells us, means the NFL.)
Wayne says that people from the NFL encouraged him to be more of a public figure during the negotiations: "To perform, it’s a bunch of things they’re going to tell you to do and not do, asses to kiss and not kiss. If you notice, I was a part of things I’ve never been a part of. Like [Michael] Rubin’s all-white parties. I’m doing shit with Tom Brady. That was all for that. You ain’t never seen me in them types of venues. I ain’t Drake. I ain’t out there smiling like that everywhere. I’m in the stu’, smokin’ and recording." When Kendrick got the spot instead, Wayne says that someone from the NFL apologized to him and said that the league "ain't in charge" of the Halftime Show: "All of a sudden, according to them, they got curved. So, I’m going to have to just settle with whatever they say."
Kendrick references Wayne's disappointment on his GNX opener "Wacced Out Murals": "Used to bump Tha Carter III, I held my Rollie chain proud/ Irony, I think my hard work let Lil Wayne down." In response, Wayne tweeted, "Let’s not take kindness for weakness. Let this giant sleep." In the Rolling Stone article, Wayne downplays any tensions with Kendrick and mentions a moment that he rapped over Kendrick's "Not Like Us" beef at a live show: "I went onstage and I was singing this song, and they thought I was dissing." But Wayne says that he didn't even pay attention to Drake and Kendrick's beef: "I ain’t want my dude to be mad at me. I didn’t even know it was Kendrick!... If it don’t happen on this channel or FS1, I wouldn’t know that happened."
Wayne says that he didn't watch Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance: "Every time I looked, it was nothing that made me want to go inside and see what was going on." He also says that he'll never accept an invitation to play a Halftime Show after that whole saga: "They stole that feeling. I don’t want to do it. It was perfect."
Wayne also addresses a few other controversies in the Rolling Stone piece. In 2021, as Donald Trump's first presidency was ending, Trump pardoned both Kodak Black and Lil Wayne, wiping away their pending federal gun charges. A few months before that, a smiling Wayne posed for a photo with Trump. Wayne says that the photo was taken on the spur of the moment as he met with Trump to discuss criminal justice reform. Here's Wayne's description fo that moment, as recorded in the Rolling Stone piece:
“There was some people in there like, ‘Y’all should take a picture.’ He didn’t even ask for a picture,” Wayne says. “[It’s] poppin’ in this bitch. And he has these nice little two things with him, too,” Wayne recalls, seemingly meaning two women. “[Trump] says, ‘These motherfuckers asking me for fucking pictures all fucking day, man. Can we please?’”
“I said, ‘It’s the president. OK,’” Wayne recalls with a smile. “[Trump] was like, ‘Thank you. Bitches [been] bothering me all day.’”
There was widespread criticism of the photo across social media. Did Wayne care? “Fuck no, I don’t care about no backlash for nothin’ I do, you know me, man,” he says in a low croak. “My mama woulda been mad if I ain’t smile. That might have been the only backlash I would have worried about.” When I ask if he would’ve joined his rap peer Nelly in performing at the inauguration, he says, “I was asked, but we had something to do.”
Trump got endorsements from several rappers last election cycle, but Wayne says he probably would have passed had he been asked. “I would’ve told him, ‘You probably don’t want that,’ because I don’t know what’s going on,” he admits, shrugging. “I can tell you who won the last game, but I can’t really … you know what I mean?” When I ask how he feels about the post-photo perception that he’s a Trump supporter, he notes, “I don’t feel about it. I don’t give a fuck about that type of shit. Tell ’em my dick big though.”
Andre Gee also asks Wayne about the story that he misused millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded COVID grants. Gee writes that Wayne "looks genuinely perplexed" at the question: "I don't know what that mean." Wayne's manager Fabian Marasciullo jumps in to say, "He ain’t got nothing to do with none of that shit. He don’t know nothing about that. It’s not the way his money comes and goes or none of that shit, but everything’s been audited and clean. It’s done and over. It’s just people fishing. If you’re not famous, they’re not talking about you."
The article also mentions that Tha Carter VI will include a song that Wayne recorded more than a decade ago that features his son Kameron and also Bono. Other guests will reportedly include Miley Cyrus and Andrea Bocelli, the latter of whom sings "Ave Maria" on one Wyclef-produced song. (The Rolling Stone piece initially mentioned a Billie Eilish collaboration, but Eilish's rep clarifies that it's "NOT a Billie Eilish feature or a collaboration. It is an uncleared sample." Read the Rolling Stone profile here.
