Lil Wayne Says JAY-Z Inspired Him To Stop Writing His Lyrics

Lil Wayne says that JAY-Z inspired him to stop writing his lyrics.

BYCole Blake
Link Copied to Clipboard!
7.7K Views
TIDAL X: 1020

Lil Wayne says that he chose to stop writing down his lyrics after he learned that JAY-Z had done the same. He recalled the decision during a recent interview on The Pivot podcast.

"The moment I heard it, I stopped. You can ask them," Wayne said, confirming the last time he ever wrote down his lyrics. The remark brought with it jokes from fans on social media. One Instagram user commented: "Sounds about right… Music been trash since 2008." Another wrote: "The amount of terrible rap we’ve gotten since this became public knowledge is ridiculous i directly correlate this thinking to the decline of hip-hop."

Read More: Pharrell Describes Jay-Z’s Writing Process As “Weird” But “Amazing”

Lil Wayne Performs At Lil WeezyAna

NEW ORLEANS, LA - AUGUST 25: Lil Wayne performs during Lil WeezyAna at Champions Square on August 25, 2018 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images)

JAY-Z actually joked about inspiring "a generation of bad writers" during an interview with MTV News regarding his process back in 2007. Despite choosing not to write, he still revealed that he had recently advised one of his nephews to write as much as possible, explaining that he had simply gotten in the habit of not writing. “My process is different now," he said at the time. "It sounds great on paper, like ‘I’mma sit down, I’m going to write the entire album like I did before.’ But once you get back in the studio and you’ve been doing this process for years and years now, so it just felt natural to do it the way I’ve been doing it: no paper, no pen, just listen to the music.”

Lil Wayne On Not Writing His Lyrics

It's not the first time Wayne has revealed that he followed suit in JAY-Z's technique. He also discussed the decision during an interview on the I Am Athlete podcast last year. He said at the time: “At like 16 or 17, I made a choice that I’m about to stop writing. Like, I’m about to stop writing my sh*t out. I had too many [thoughts coming at once]… that’s when that really started happening. I told you, I deal with that… the words keep popping up in my damn head, and that’s when it really started happening, becoming a headache, a real problem. That’s when I said, I’m not about to write no more.”

Read More: Lil Wayne Says He Prefers Creativity Over Competition In Rap

[Via]

  • Link Copied to Clipboard!
About The Author
Cole Blake is currently an Editor at HotNewHipHop based out of Brooklyn, New York. He began working at the site as an intern back in 2018 while studying journalism at St. John’s University. In the time since, he’s graduated with a bachelor's degree and written extensively about a wide range of topics including pop culture, film & television, politics, video games, sports, and much more. He’s also covered music festivals such as Gov. Ball and Rolling Loud. You can find him publishing work for HNHH from Monday to Wednesday or on weekends. On the sports front, Cole’s a passionate NBA and NFL fan with his favorite teams being the Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Lakers. He also roots for the Yankees whenever he finds himself at Yankee Stadium or the Red Storm when in the company of other SJU alumni. His favorite hip-hop artists are billy woods, Earl Sweatshirt, Cam’ron, MIKE, and Mach-Hommy.