Lil Wayne

Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. (born September27, 1982), known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter.

He is regarded as one of the most influential hip hop artists of his generation, and is often mentioned among the greatest rappers of all time.

Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. was born on September27, 1982, and spent his first few years in the impoverished Hollygrove neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana's 17th Ward.

His mother, a cook, gave birth to him when she was 19 years old.

His parents divorced when he was two and his father permanently abandoned the family.

When CBS interviewer Katie Couric asked why he used the name Wayne instead of his given name, Carter explained that "I dropped the D because I'm a junior and my father is living and he's not in my life and he's never been in my life. So I don't want to be Dwayne, I'd rather be Wayne".

Asked if his father knew of this, Carter replied, "He knows now".

Carter has said that he considers his deceased stepfather Reginald "Rabbit" McDonald to be his real father.

Carter has a tattoo dedicated to McDonald.

Carter was enrolled in the gifted program at Lafayette Elementary School.

He later attended Eleanor McMain Secondary School for two years, where he was an honor student and a member of the drama club, playing the Tin Man in the school's production of The Wiz.

After matriculating to Marion Abramson Senior High School, Carter dropped out at age 14 to focus on his musical career.

Carter wrote his first rap song at age eight.

In the summer of 1991, he met rapper and Cash Money Records co-founder Bryan "Baby" Williams (known currently as Birdman), who mentored him and encouraged his love of hip-hop; Birdman included Carter on several Cash Money tracks, and Carter would often record freestyle raps on Williams' answering machine.

In 1994, at age 12, Carter suffered a near-fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest.

At the time he said the injury was accidental.

Decades later Carter claimed that it was an attempted suicide after he was told by his mother that he would have to end his rap-related associations.

Carter credits off-duty police officer Robert Hoobler, who he calls "Uncle Bob", with saving his life by insisting the dying child be driven immediately to hospital in a police car rather than waiting for an ambulance to become available.

Other accounts indicate that several officers played a part in deciding on and implementing that course of action.

Wayne's career began in 1995, when he was signed by rapper Birdman to his record label Cash Money Records, becoming the youngest member of the label at age eleven.

In 1995, Wayne was placed in a duo with labelmate B.G. and they released an album, True Story in July of that year, although Wayne (at the time known as Baby D) only appeared on three tracks.

Wayne and B.G. soon formed the Southern hip hop group Hot Boys with Cash Money label-mates Juvenile and Turk in 1997; they released their debut album, Get It How U Live! in October of that year.

In 1997, Carter joined the Hot Boys along with rappers Juvenile, B.G., and Turk.

The Hot Boys gained mainstream success following the release of their second album Guerrilla Warfare (1999), as well as their single "Bling Bling".

Wayne's debut studio album, Tha Block Is Hot (1999) quickly achieved commercial success and served as his breakthrough as a solo act, followed by Lights Out (2000) and 500 Degreez (2003).

The group briefly disbanded after the album due to each member (besides Wayne) parting ways with the label, although one further album—Let 'Em Burn (2003)—was released.

He reached wider popularity and critical acclaim with his fourth and fifth albums Tha Carter (2004) and Tha Carter II (2005), as well as several mixtapes and collaborations throughout 2006 and 2007.

Wayne founded the record label Young Money Entertainment in 2005, which has signed artists including Drake, Tyga and Nicki Minaj.

A month later in March, he began serving an 8-month jail sentence for criminal possession of a weapon stemming from an incident in July 2007.

He propelled to the forefront of hip hop with his sixth album Tha Carter III (2008), with first-week sales of over one million units in the US.

The album won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album and was supported by his first Billboard Hot 100-number one single "Lollipop" (featuring Static Major), the top-ten singles "A Milli" and "Got Money" (featuring T-Pain), and the top-20 single "Mrs. Officer" (featuring Bobby V and Kidd Kidd).

Wayne's seventh studio album, Rebirth (2010) experimented with rap rock and was released in February of that year to generally negative critical response.

His eighth album, I Am Not a Human Being (2010) was released during his incarceration, while the release of his ninth album, Tha Carter IV (2011) coincided months after his release from prison.

Tha Carter IV sold 964,000 units in its first-week in the United States and received mixed reviews.

On September27, 2012, he became the first male artist to surpass Elvis Presley with the most entries on the Billboard Hot 100, with 109 songs.

From then on, he was the flagship artist of Cash Money Records before ending his association with the imprint in June 2018.

His twelfth studio album, Tha Carter V (2018)—preceded by I Am Not a Human Being II (2013) and Free Weezy Album (2015)—was released following long-term delays and label disputes, and was met with 480,000 in first-week sales.

His thirteenth album, Funeral (2020) became his fifth non-consecutive number one album.

Wayne has sold over 120 million records worldwide, including more than 25 million albums and 92 million digital tracks in the United States, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists.

He has won five Grammy Awards, eleven BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards and eight NAACP Image Awards.