5 Things We've Learned From Lil Wayne & Birdman's Beef

Lil Wayne and Birdman may finally be putting their differences aside. Now, how many times have you read the sentence in the last three years? The dread-headed lyrical tyrant acrimoniously parted ways with his fictional father’s Cash Money record label in 2014. Yes, it has already been over three years since Wayne tweeted “To all my fans, I want u to know that my album won't and hasn't been released bekuz Baby & Cash Money Rec. refuse to release it,” in December or 2014. Out of all the bars that Wayne has laid down over the years, it was that sentence that shook Weezy’s massive fan base the most.

Since 2014, the multi-million-dollar feud has been a constant roller coaster ride of proposed truces and reloaded, enraged threats. It first started as a plea from Wayne to release his album, Tha Carter V, but it escalated into a full-blown “where’s my money?” lawsuit that has snowballed into one of the biggest hip-hop fallouts since Jay-Z and Dame Dash. The feud reached a dangerous level of enmity after Young Thug and Birdman associate Peewee Roscoe was arrested for shooting up Wayne’s tour bus in 2015. Roscoe even pointed to Birdman as being a party to the attempted hit on Wayne, but a judge handed Peewee a 10-year prison sentence, along with 10 years of probation, without extending charges to the implicated Cash Money millionaire.

There have been several moments of speculated sunshine that teased Young Money fans from behind a cloud of doubt since the fallout began. Habitual nice-guy Drake arranged a New Years Eve party in 2016 that brokered a truce between Birdman and Wayne. The two were even pictured in the studio together and on stage together soon after the truce, but Wayne broadened his lawsuit in the spring of 2016 to include unpaid profits from his investments in Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Tyga’s careers. So ended the Drizzy-arranged truce.

Last weekend, Wayne and Birdman were spotted hugging it out at LIV in Miami. The two have been so closely intertwined for so long that it’s hard to believe they don’t still have love for each other. TMZ recently reported that the two have been attempting to squash their beef for months. Working through the beef doesn’t mean that Wayne will drop the lawsuits though, which may continue to put a strain on his relationship with Birdman. Some would say the collision course of Wayne’s career and Birdman’s historically atrocious payroll skills was written in destiny long before it finally came to a head.

Now, if the conflict is actually coming to a close, it’s essential to look back at the biggest lessons learned from this family feud. Wayne and Birdman gave us five major takeaways from their years-long money struggle.

Lil Wayne created Young Money Records as his own label. Still, Wayne had both Cash Money and their parent company, Universal Music Group, to answer to. Looking back at the hold-up that Tha Carter V is facing, that entire situation could have been avoided if Weezy took his own label elsewhere. If Weezy had brought his Cash Money imprint to one of the other major labels (Sony or Warner), Birdman would not have had the ability to hold the album up. When Drake created his OVO imprint, he took the label to Warner Bros. Records. The move effectively circumvented any legal and financial connections with Birdman and Cash Money, allowing Drizzy’s artists’ careers to be unaffected by the drama that he himself has been drawn into.

This lesson seems so obvious, but yet here we are, over 3 years into one of the most public family-money feuds in hip-hop history. Birdman and Wayne aren’t really related, and there was never an official adoption. In fact, Wayne has claimed that his stepfather  Reginald "Rabbit" McDonald is the man whom he considers his real dad, although he is named after his biological father. Several artists have called Birdman out for unpaid dues over the last decade, and the only conceivable reason that Wayne stayed at Cash Money was his love for his hip-hop pop. In fact, although it was well-known that Birdman had stuck his hands into his artists' pockets, no one would have ever believed that he would steal from his son.

Young Money is under Cash Money, which is under UMG, which is a subsidiary of Vivendi. That means that there’s a line of people touching Wayne’s money before he does. It also means that his artists' money is also tied up under layers of labels. Young Money and Cash Money came to an agreement that net profits earned by solo artists like Nicki Minaj and Drake would not be used to fulfill debts and advances previously accumulated by Cash Money. Still, UMG took Young Money's profits to pay Cash Money's debts. In the lawsuit aimed at UMG, Wayne claims that the two labels "colluded" to "expand Universal’s rights and compensation regarding the distribution and exploitation of Drake recordings." Everbody's all tied up. 

Lil Wayne met his manager Cortez Bryant at Eleanor McMain Secondary School in 7th grade. The two remained friends through the years while Wayne pursued a career in hip-hop and Bryant attended college. Just as Bryant was finishing his mass communications degree at Jackson State in Mississippi, Wayne asked him to become his manager. Since the Young Money/Cash Money fallout, Bryant has been one of the most important assets in Wayne’s corner. He wholeheartedly believes in Wayne’s talent, and he immediately shut the door on Birdman once he realized that his friend was being mistreated. Rappers who choose to let their record label assign them management, or a legal team, risk the chance of being caught in an intricate web where everybody is on the same team except the artist-- making it a them vs. artist situation.

It seems like all this Cash Money/Young Money mayhem began around the time that Young Thug and Birdman partnered up. Rich Homie Quan was in the mix as well. Thugger was emerging as one of the biggest stars in hip-hop, and his iconic worshiping of Wayne most likely secured his loyalty to Birdman. Who better to tutor a young Wayne protégé, than the man that tutored Wayne, right? The relationship between Young Thug and Birdman grew, and Thugger’s projects kept flowing, while Wayne’s album faced multiple delays which led to the eventual “shelving” of the album. Birdman was under the impression that he found himself a new Lil Wayne in Thugger. Even after Rich Homie left, Birdman was still convinced that Thugger was the new wave. Truth be told, he could be right. The fact remains though, that there is only one Lil Wayne. The entire reputation of Cash Money sits at Wayne’s feet. Yes, Birdman may have built the label alongside his brother Slim, but their legacy is rooted so deep within Lil Wayne’s music that shunning their legend for the new kid on the block may have been ill-advised.