Lil Wayne: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

5 years in the past, Lil Wayne sat down in his Miami recording studio and spoke in depth with Billboard for the primary time in virtually a decade. The trailblazing rapper and entrepreneur stood at a crossroads: On the verge of releasing what he had declared could be his last album, Tha Carter V, he had lastly settled the three-year lawsuit towards his former label Money Cash that had delayed the mission’s launch and simply been awarded sole possession of the Younger Cash imprint he had launched in 2003.

In order Aug. 11 — the fiftieth anniversary of hip-hop — quick approaches alongside Younger Cash’s personal twentieth birthday, it’s becoming to be sitting down with Lil Wayne as soon as once more. One of many style’s most revolutionary and nonetheless influential artists, the 40-year-old Louisianian occupies a novel vantage level, cast throughout a now almost 30-year journey that started in 1997 with the New Orleans group Sizzling Boys and shortly grew right into a multimillion-selling solo profession. And that’s not counting the still-growing record of hit collaborations he’s had with a various array of fellow hip-hop and R&B artists — together with Drake, Nicki Minaj, Future, 2 Chainz, Chris Brown, Mary J. Blige and Lil Child — in addition to different intrepid pairings with artists up and down the style aisles: Madonna, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Think about Dragons, Fall Out Boy, Romeo Santos and Shakira, amongst others. In the middle of hip-hop’s personal evolution, Wayne’s profession is a bridge between then and now, between the style’s storied, hard-won previous and its next-gen, international future.

Learn the total Lil Wayne cowl story right here.