Lil Wayne on Signing Drake and Nicki Minaj: "I Saw Way More Than Just Potential"

Lil Wayne hopped on a recent episode of the I Am Athlete podcast where he touched on career longevity and signing two of Young Money’s biggest stars, Drake and Nicki Minaj.

Weezy shared that his decision to sign Drake and Minaj was based on more than just turning them into “the next one,” but rather the potential he initially saw in them. “That’s when I saw way more than just potential,” he said, further touching on Drizzy’s shining star. “When Drake’s music was brought to me from the homie Jas, it was about rap. I was like, ‘This dude sound different.’ What I loved about him, he was sounding just as dope as we were. When I say we, I’m talking about the streets and what we came from.”

He continued, “I told him, ‘You could make working in the cubicle — you know how to make that the dopest thing in the world. Don’t stop.’ Then one day I heard, ‘[singing voice].’ Like, ‘What the f*ck was that?’ I remember asking Mack [Maine] who that is [singing] on the hook? … You gotta be the ultimate artist. My homie could do two nights when he hits your city.”

The Young Money founder also touched on how he’s managed to grow a career that’s lasted almost 30 years, explaining that it’s about having an open mind. “You have to be, first of all, you have to be embracing,” he explained. “You can’t be the person that’s saying I don’t like the new music. You gotta love it. Learn it, like it and love it started you better understand that’s music. That’s not a certain type of music, that’s music. You got to Apple Music and top 100s and them folks right there.”

“Therefore you have to embrace that,” he further shared. “You gotta go get you a vocal coach. Rest in peace, Ms. Betty Wright. Then you got a Drake. He’s music. My goal now, if you want to be the ultimate artist, that’s what I want to be. In sports, we like to call them the Swiss Army Knife.”

Watch the full interview above.

Elsewhere in music, Kodak Black’s Back for Everything debuted at No. 2.