Dwayne Carter spent most of the aughts sitting alone in a cavernous chamber deep within Wayne Manor for 16 to 18 hours a day, clutching a snifter of cough syrup while mumbling barely intelligible stream of consciousness ramblings into a microphone, pausing only for sleep and the occasional tooth-shining. These recordings were then sent to a top-secret room where a team of elves worked round the clock to separate the actual words from the codeine-addled jibberish (of course, some jibberish did slip through the cracks. The elves were good, but there was an awful lot of jibberish). These words were then grouped together by theme or tone of voice to form 30 to 45 second long verses, the best of which were paired with beats to be released as a mixtape or, in rare cases, a proper LP bearing the Lil Wayne name. Each verse that was not lucky enough to make it onto a Wayne release was loaded onto a USB memory stick, placed in an unmarked envelope, and mailed to a rapper chosen from Wayne Manor's detailed rapper database, which contained the names and addresses of every MC alive. Each day, rappers all over the world would wake up really early in the morning and run out to their mailbox in their pajamas to check and see if they had received a verse, which they would be free to use on their own album, mixtape, or "even though I'm in prison, please don't forget about me" time-released track.
It is estimated that 95 to 99 percent of rappers received a verse from Lil Wayne at some point in time in their career. Those who didn't were laughed at and called names by the other rappers and were forbidden from joining in any rapper games.
"Hey Gavin, what's up?"
"Not much Justin, how are you?"
"I'm cool. Have you heard the new Gucci Mane track? It's awesome."
"No, uh, I'm not really into him."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, his music is a little too . . . uh . . . 'street', if you know what I mean."
"What? I don't follow."
"You know, his sound, it's, um, how do I put this . . . a little 'hardcore' or 'dark', if you will."
"Oh, OK. I see what you're getting at. Well, that's a shame, this song is really good. Wayne's verse is sick."
"Lil Wayne?!?! Why didn't you say so in the first place?! I saw him on The View once! I love that guy!"
"Fuck you."
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