Lil Wayne’s No Ceilings Is Finally Getting A Vinyl Release

The mixtape that once lived in DatPiff downloads and burned CDs is getting a decidedly more collectible home. Seventeen years after Lil Wayne released No Ceilings, the fan-favorite project is receiving its first vinyl pressing as part of Record Store Day Black Friday. The burnt orange edition arrives Nov. 27 through Young Money and will be limited to 5,000 copies. The pressing is listed at $39.99, with “Kobe Bryant” specifically confirmed as a bonus track.

That physical release gives No Ceilings another life after years of being complicated by the very thing that made it a quintessential mixtape. Wayne originally spent the 2009 project taking other artists’ records apart and rebuilding them around his own bars, rapping over songs by Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Gucci Mane, among others. That format's freedom helped make the tape beloved, but it also made bringing the entire project into the commercial streaming era difficult.

When No Ceilings finally hit streaming services in 2020, fans didn't get the full mixtape they remembered. The original 21-track release was reduced to 12 songs, with several freestyles left behind. Clearing the music proved especially complicated because so much of the project relied on existing instrumentals. Wayne’s manager, Mack Maine, later described clearing the tape as a “frigging nightmare,” explaining that the cost and ownership negotiations made restoring Wayne’s mixtape catalog to streaming unusually difficult. Even so, the shortened No Ceilings release introduced the project to listeners who had missed the era when finding a Wayne tape meant heading somewhere other than Spotify.

Moreover, the title grew into its own franchise. Wayne followed with No Ceilings 2 in 2015, then revived the series in 2020 with No Ceilings 3. At the time, he told Complex that the mixtape format had played such an important role in his career that he wanted to help bring the art back.

For collectors, the real pressure point is scarcity. Record Store Day Black Friday releases ship through participating independent record stores, and with only 5,000 copies pressed, No Ceilings will likely be one of the harder Wayne releases to stumble across casually after Nov. 27.