Lil Wayne is opening up about how he stayed committed to recording music during his eight-month jail sentence at Rikers Island in New York in 2010.
During an appearance on the Friends Keep Secrets podcast on Tuesday, July 21, the five-time Grammy-winning rapper explained that he continued creating music while incarcerated, recording his verses through phone calls from his cell.
“I went to the studio every night in jail,” Lil Wayne, now 43, said, clarifying that he would record over the phone.
“In my cell,” he added. “That meant everybody be quiet. I’m about to beat on this damn table.”
The “6 Foot 7 Foot” rapper said he had a 10:45 p.m. bedtime while in custody, but he found a way to work around the schedule by starting his phone conversations shortly before the cutoff time so he could continue recording.
“I would do it on purpose … That’s why everyone’s gotta lock in,” the rapper said of his fellow inmates. “It was just me on the phone and [that way] I can actually record.”
When asked whether other inmates attempted to listen to his recordings, Lil Wayne said most people were uninterested in what he was doing during his phone sessions.
Reflecting on his time behind bars, Lil Wayne said the experience was not the worst period of his life because he received special treatment due to his celebrity status. He credited the people around him inside the facility for helping him through the experience.
“Not at all,” he began. “But I have to give all of that thanks and credit to the people that were around me in there. They made it their job to make it easy for me.”
The rapper explained that he initially tried to make his days pass faster, but eventually adjusted to prison life and began watching television with other inmates. When asked what program he watched, Lil Wayne named Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid.
“You think they’re watching it because a female is in there naked. Nah, they know the storyline, they know everything,” he said.
Lil Wayne was released in November 2010 after completing an eight-month sentence connected to a weapon possession charge stemming from his 2007 arrest.
In a February 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, the rapper reflected on his legal troubles and said he viewed the situation as part of his personal journey.
“I look at things as ‘Everything is meant to be.’ I know it’s an experience that I need to have if God’s putting me through it,” he said. “So I don’t look at it as wrong, I just … I damn sure don’t look at it as right, that’s all.”
Years later, in 2022, rapper Fat Joe recalled visiting Lil Wayne while he was incarcerated and shared the advice the rapper gave him before Fat Joe faced his own jail sentence.
“One of the saddest things I ever did was go visit Lil Wayne in jail. Not only that, but they had him chained up. Lil Wayne,” Fat Joe said on Red Table Talk. “They had him in shackles and all that. They had him like he was the killer.”
“So. I went to go see him,” he continued. “He’s my brother, man. He lives across the street from me in Miami — and so I’m walking into the jail, and I get a phone call. It’s Lil Wayne. I was like, ‘Yo Wayne, what’s up?’ And he was like, ‘I’m just telling you right now, be humble.’ And I said, ‘Well, how do you do it?’ and he said, ‘Just be humble bro.’ ”
