For the second episode of Young Money Radio on Apple Music, Lil Wayne was joined by Drake who discussed fatherhood and his ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ release.
He also reminisced about the time Wayne showed him and the late Kobe Bryant ‘Lollipop' and promised more music with Wayne. Additional guests included: Stephen A. Smith, DJ Khaled, Chennedy Carter, Jalen Hurts, and Shaquille O’Neal.
Drake on fatherhood…
I posted those pictures. It was great for me. It was great to just share that with the world and I just felt like...It wasn't even anything I talked to anybody about or anything I planned. I just woke up one morning and I was like, you know what? This is just something that I want to do. I want to be able to go places with my son and share memories with my son. I don't want to feel like just because of a life choice I made to be a "celebrity" that I got to make everybody live under this blanket. So, I just wanted to free myself of that. And I've watched you be a functioning rap father for years, an incredible father.
And that gave me a lot of confidence too. A lot of us, like Chainz, is a great father and a lot of the guys that we came up around just being great family men on those tours and on those long studio nights when albums need to get done. But specifically you, just how you always just made shit function and work and how much love the people in your life have for you. And I could just tell the way your kids would stare at you that the time and effort that you put in as a father. So, that was really inspiring for me just to know that I can still keep pushing forward as a musician and be there for my son.
Drake on dropping ‘Dark Lane Demo Tapes'…
It was just a lot of joints that sort of were floating around. Songs that people just kept asking me about or for. With the whole pandemic thing that's going on, we've been playing more music on live. So, there was joints that got played on live and then there was a couple leak situations that happened a little early in the year. For a second the shit felt like '09 or 2010 or some shit. I couldn't believe how much music was leaking. Not just from me, from every artist. It was like they were just back out here on some. You remember back in the day it was inevitable.
We pieced a lot of those songs together and I put a few new joints on there, but really it was just instead of dropping a single right now...It's an interesting time for us all as musicians to figure out how this works and what people need. And I just felt like people would appreciate maybe a body of something to listen to as opposed to just one isolated song. So yeah, I just tried to float that out there, set the tone for the album and then, yeah the album is being worked on every day. Like I always say, in every interview I do, I learn from the best, I'm in the gym seven days a week because of the man I'm on the phone with.
Drake recalls the story of Wayne showing him and Kobe Bryant 'Lollipop'...
Lil Wayne: On the song, From Florida with Love, you reminded me about the time I played Lollipop on the tour bus for you and the late great Kobe Bryant, man. Rest in peace to the Black Mamba, also happy b-day Gigi.
Drake: Yes. Happy birthday.
Lil Wayne: That was a moment, man. That right there, man.
Drake: Yeah. It was crazy, man. I think you were getting an angel wing tattoo on your side that day.
Lil Wayne: Always doing something wild.
Drake: You were getting this crazy angel wing tattoo and it just looked so painful. And me, at the time, I had no tattoos, so I was just like, ah man, that just looks like brutal and you're just laying there just and it was hours..
Lil Wayne: I probably was talking.
Drake: Yeah, we were talking. It was early. We were talking and next thing I knew, I just couldn't believe it, I'm already just floored that I'm sitting here talking to Lil Wayne as he's bleeding out, getting this angel wing on his side. And then next thing I know Kobe Bryant walks on the bus and you were like, "Yo." And he came to pick up an iPod because at the time, that's how we gave the actors music was on iPod.
Lil Wayne: Exactly.
Drake: And yeah. And you ran the album and you played more than one song for sure, but of course, you played Lollipop and at that point, I was most in awe of the album because I knew it was about to happen. I just knew. That was my first-time hearing…
Lil Wayne: We was about to go... Yeah, we was about to go.
Drake: Yeah. I knew exactly where the whole world was about to be focused for the next however many years. But just to be in that moment with you and him and-
Lil Wayne: Unexplainable.
Drake: Yeah. It was out of body, man. And when I think back to it, it was something I just wanted to write about, especially now. Obviously, in the second verse I say it hurts me that we'll all never get to reminisce about that moment. But yeah, rest in peace to Kobe and Gigi of course.
Lil Wayne: Shot out to his fam too.
Drake: Yeah. Shot out to the family. But what a moment that you gave me that day. That was crazy, man. For real.
Drake and Wayne on giving the world more music together...
Lil Wayne: The world want to know, Mac want to know, my mama want to know when is we going to give the people another joint, man? Me and you. Come on now.
Drake: I'm ready any time.
Lil Wayne: Let me explain to the people. Let me explain to the people though. Now, something about me and Drizzy songs that we do together, we are both perfectionists. So, it's not like, you send me a joint, I'm going to throw a verse on there and…We got a standard we got to live up to and we got a track record and a legacy we got to always protect. And then on top of that, it's like we have this thing where it's like, well, if I'm a send you a joint and I'm going to go first, first of all, I already know, it's like, all right, I know this man's about to go crazy on me. And I feel like it's like ... These are moments where we truly-
Drake: In rap there's no score to define a winner or there's no championship game. So, these are the moments of competition that we truly enjoy. Oh yeah.
Lil Wayne: I was about to say, it's still technical, it's still strategic and it's very much competition.
Drake: Yes, sir. Well look, on that note, you have my word as a man and Mac, you can hold me to this when we get off the phone, I'm going to be in the studio. What's today? Friday? I'm going to be in the studio all weekend. By midweek or maybe Monday night, you will have at least two joints.
Lil Wayne: I got something. Say less.
Drake: For sure, I'm going to chef for you right now.
