Lil Wayne

Wayne has four children namely daughter Reginae from his high school sweetheart, Antonia, with whom he was married from 2004 to 2006; son, Dwayne III, from radio broadcaster Sarah Vivan; son, Cameron, from actress Lauren London; and son, Neal, from singer, Nivea.

He was also romantically associated with rapper, Trina, and singer, Christina Milian.

From January 2005 he started attending ‘University of Houston’ post his GED, however dropped out later. He later took up online courses from the ‘University of Phoenix’ and majored in psychology.

Lil Wayne was born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. on September 27, 1982, in New Orleans, Louisiana, US. When he was two years of age, his parents divorced and Wayne started living with his mother, a cook. He was raised in Hollygrove, one of the poorest neighbourhoods of New Orleans.

He was quite close to his stepfather Rabbit who was eventually killed. Wayne has a tattoo in Rabbit’s memory.

Talking about why he dropped the ‘D’ from his name, Wayne mentioned in a CBS interview, “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".

He started writing rap songs at just eight years of age and met American rapper, record producer and co-founder of ‘Cash Money Records’ Bryan Williams better known by stage names Birdman and Baby in 1991.

Impressed by the talent of eight-year-old Wayne, who recorded freestyle raps on answering machines of Birdman, the later became Wayne’s mentor and included him in ‘Cash Money Records’. Eventually, the two started sharing a father–son bonding with Birdman calling Wayne his son.

He became a part of the hip hop group, ‘Hot Boys’ in 1996. The second studio album of the group ‘Guerrilla Warfare’ released on July 27, 1999, and topped the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and reached No. 5 on Billboard 200 giving the group including Wayne a basic recognition.

Wayne came up with his debut solo album ‘Tha Block Is Hot’, which was released by ‘Cash Money Records’ on November 2, 1999. The album that became a Top Ten hit and reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 was given platinum certification by RIAA.

His next two albums ‘Lights Out’ (2000) and ‘500 Degreez’ (2002) although earned gold certification from RIAA failed to catch up with the success of ‘Tha Block Is Hot’.

His fourth album ‘Tha Carter’ released by ‘Cash Money Records’ and ‘Universal Records’ on June 29, 2004, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and marked a first-week sale of 116,000 copies in the US. It also received gold certification from RIAA.

He became the president of Cash Money in 2005 and in that year itself he founded the record label ‘Young Money Entertainment’ which is an imprint of ‘Cash Money Records’. However, in late 2007 he mentioned giving up the management positions from both the labels.