5 Important Things we’ve learnt from Lil Wayne and Birdman’s Beef
Lil Wayne and Birdman may finally be putting their differences aside. Now, how many times have you read the sentence in the last three years?
The dread-headed lyrical tyrant acrimoniously parted ways with his fictional father’s Cash Money record label in 2014. Yes, it has already been over three years since Wayne tweeted “To all my fans, I want u to know that my album won’t and hasn’t been released bekuz Baby & Cash Money Rec. refuse to release it,” in December or 2014. Out of all the bars that Wayne has laid down over the years, it was that sentence that shook Weezy’s massive fan base the most.
Since 2014, the multi-million-dollar feud has been a constant roller coaster ride of proposed truces and reloaded, enraged threats. It first started as a plea from Wayne to release his album, Tha Carter V, but it escalated into a full-blown “where’s my money?” lawsuit that has snowballed into one of the biggest hip-hop fallouts since Jay-Z and Dame Dash. The feud reached a dangerous level of enmity after Young Thug and Birdman associate Peewee Roscoe was arrested for shooting up Wayne’s tour bus in 2015. Roscoe even pointed to Birdman as being a party to the attempted hit on Wayne, but a judge handed Peewee a 10-year prison sentence, along with 10 years of probation, without extending charges to the implicated Cash Money millionaire.
There have been several moments of speculated sunshine that teased Young Money fans from behind a cloud of doubt since the fallout began. Habitual nice-guy Drake arranged a New Years Eve party in 2016 that brokered a truce between Birdman and Wayne. The two were even pictured in the studio together and on stage together soon after the truce, but Wayne broadened his lawsuit in the spring of 2016 to include unpaid profits from his investments in Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Tyga’s careers. So ended the Drizzy-arranged truce.
Last weekend, Wayne and Birdman were spotted hugging it out at LIV in Miami. The two have been so closely intertwined for so long that it’s hard to believe they don’t still have love for each other. TMZ recently reported that the two have been attempting to squash their beef for months. Working through the beef doesn’t mean that Wayne will drop the lawsuits though, which may continue to put a strain on his relationship with Birdman. Some would say the collision course of Wayne’s career and Birdman’s historically atrocious payroll skills was written in destiny long before it finally came to a head.
Now, if the conflict is actually coming to a close, it’s essential to look back at the biggest lessons learned from this family feud. Wayne and Birdman gave us five major takeaways from their years-long money struggle.
1-Keep Your Imprint Separate from Your Major
Lil Wayne created Young Money Records as his own label. Still, Wayne had both Cash Money and their parent company, Universal Music Group, to answer to. Looking back at the hold-up that Tha Carter V is facing, that entire situation could have been avoided if Weezy took his own label elsewhere. If Weezy had brought his Cash Money imprint to one of the other major labels (Sony or Warner), Birdman would not have had the ability to hold the album up. When Drake created his OVO imprint, he took the label to Warner Bros. Records. The move effectively circumvented any legal and financial connections with Birdman and Cash Money, allowing Drizzy’s artists’ careers to be unaffected by the drama that he himself has been drawn into.
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