Lil Wayne Stopped Writing Down Lyrics Because of Jay-Z

For more than two decades now, Lil Wayne has not been writing down any of the lyrics he raps. In a new interview with The Pivot Podcast on YouTube, uploaded Tuesday (July 11), the Louisiana native explained that he was inspired to stop penning his lyrics by Jay-Z, who also refused to rap off of a sheet of paper or a notebook.

Wayne and the Pivot hosts Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder first began this discussion by talking about Wayne’s favorite East Coast rappers. While giving credit to New York legends like The Notorious B.I.G. and Jadakiss, Wayne specifies that Jay-Z is his absolute favorite. “I like Biggie, love Biggie. Love Jadakiss. Love all that shit. But Jay-Z…”

Immediately after the mention of Jay-Z, Crowder then asks Wayne’s thoughts on Jay-Z’s method of never writing down his lyrics, as he instead opted to punch in rhymes that came to his head while recording over an instrumental. Wayne insisted he does the same because he was inspired by Jay-Z, ever since he found Hov’s approach in 2002.

“When I heard that, the moment I heard it, I stopped [writing down lyrics],” Wayne replied. “I was like, ‘I heard Jay-Z don’t write, I won’t write no more.’”

Then, Wayne confirmed that the last song he ever wrote down lyrics for was his 2002 song “10,000 Bars.” Lasting 35 minutes, “10,000 Bars” sees Wayne rap every single lyric he had ever jotted down in his rhyme notebook.

“We went in the studio and did ‘10,000 Bars,’ and that was the last time I rapped anything off of a paper,” Wayne told Pivot.

While Wayne certainly held a tremendous amount of respect for Jay-Z, the two would not collaborate until 2007, when Jay-Z released his 10th studio album American Gangster, inspired by the 2007 movie under the same name. Wayne gave a feature verse for the LP’s fourth song “Hello Brooklyn 2.0.” The next year, Wayne and Hov connected twice, not only for “Mr. Carter” on Wayne’s Tha Carter III album, but also on “Swagga Like Us” from T.I.’s Paper Trail LP.

Most recently, the duo reunited in August 2022 on the title track for DJ Khaled’s God Did album. Eventually, the two would perform the song together on stage with Khaled at the 2023 Grammys in February.

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