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Lil Wayne is gearing up to drop his highly anticipated album this summer, and he recruited a shocking group of hitmakers to appear on it.
On Thursday, April 17, the veteran rapper gave an exclusive preview of Tha Carter VI in his cover story for Rolling Stone. During the listening session, Weezy played collaborations with MGK, Elephant Man, Miley Cyrus, Andrea Bochelli, Bono of U2, his son Kameron as well as producers Ye and Wheezy. Wyclef Jean, who also appears on the album, told the magazine he and Wayne recorded 30 songs for the album.
“If there’s one thing about this album that’s different, it’s me approaching it like, ‘Man, what would I sound like on something with such and such?’" Wayne said.
“Leaving Wyclef Jean and Lil Wayne in a studio for 24 hours is a dangerous thing,” Wyclef quipped. “You don’t know what’s going to pop out.” Jean also revealed that they formed a group of other top-notch musicians for their collaboration including New Orleans' own Jon Batiste, Ledisi, Trombone Shorty, and PJ Morton.
“You going to probably do like eight songs [with Wyclef] because he’s going to keep flipping what you did on one [song] and make a whole [new] song out of that s**t," Weezy added.
Lil Wayne first announced the title of his 14th solo album in 2022. Since then, the Young Money co-founder has knocked out other collaborative projects like Trust Fund Babies with Rich The Kid (2021) and Welcome 2 Collegrove with 2 Chainz (2023). He also shared Tha Fix Before Tha VI mixtape in 2023 in preparation for the sixth installment of his long-running album series. He finally confirmed the release date for Tha Carter VI ahead of Super Bowl LIX in February. Speaking of the Big Game, Wayne also commented on his feelings about performing at the Super Bowl Halftime Show following the controversy surrounding Kendrick Lamar's headlining performance.
“They stole that feeling," Weezy said. "I don’t want to do it. It was perfect.”
“To perform, it’s a bunch of things [the NFL] going to tell you to do and not do, asses to kiss and not kiss," he continued. "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 s**t 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.”
Look out for Lil Wayne's Tha Carter VI dropping June 6 and read Rolling Stone's cover story here.