After a four year pause due to a nasty court battle with Birdman, Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter V” is slated to be released this fall.
In a new interview with Billboard, the 35-year-old talked about the new LP and what it was like going against Birdman, his mentor and someone he called his father.
In 2014 Wayne accused Birdman of not paying him millions of dollars he was owed after renegotiating his contract in 2012.
The two ended their dispute in court on June 7, 2018 for an undisclosed amount, and Wayne and his Young Money label now have a distribution deal with Republic Records.
During the interview, the rapper said his problems with Birdman wasn’t just about money, it was far deeper and more personal than that.
“I’m a very passionate guy about anything I do,” said Wayne. “So once I find out that I’m being f—-d over, I’m going to be passionate about that emotion toward how I feel about it.”
“My mama [is the only one with] things in her mind that she wanna buy,” he continued. “The difficult part of it was finally having to pull the curtains back and see what the hell was out that window. Having to actually care about other things than my music and my lyrics.”
At this time, there’s no release date for “The Carter V” since Wayne said he’s still putting the finishing touches on it. Plus, he’s updating the lyrics because some of the original song concepts are six years old.
Weezy first announced the release of the album in 2012, and he explained how he maintained a level of happiness during the long pause.
“Just the confidence in knowing that there’s always a tomorrow, and I’m going to make sure that tomorrow is bright,” he explained. “Some people can’t go on [like] that, like, ‘Okay, tomorrow will be better.’ They need it to be better right now, and thank God I didn’t and I never did.”
These days Birdman and Lil Wayne are on good terms again and were seen together on stage recently. Birdman even apologized to the rapper at his Lil Weezyana Fest, but Wayne said there’s now less trust in their relationship.
“Not even just with him but my relationships with a lot of people have become different, just because of how different I work now,” he explained. “I’m submerged in everything about myself, trying to be better at who I am. It’s something where you have to cut some things off.”
