Lil Wayne

A New Orleans native, Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. found his way into hip-hop early: discovered by Birdman in 1993, signed to Cash Money Records at eleven, and schooled in the label’s streetwise bounce sound. He first surfaced as part of the B.G.‘z, then as a member of the Hot Boys alongside Juvenile, B.G., and Turk. His solo debut, Tha Block Is Hot, arrived in 1999 and made commercial noise immediately. But it was through the mixtape circuit that Wayne sharpened the hungrier, more idiosyncratic voice that would come to define his prime.

The Tha Carter series became his true signature. 2004’s Tha Carter and 2005’s Tha Carter II landed inside the Billboard top five with critical momentum behind them. Tha Carter III then gave him the peak of his career: a million first-week copies, a Grammy for Best Rap Album, and his first Hot 100 number one with “Lollipop.” Even a prison sentence and the genre-questionable Rebirth did not stall his output—I Am Not a Human Being appeared while he was incarcerated.

Few rappers have bent the expectation of what a solo star can do on an album, a mixtape, and a feature with Lil Wayne’s fluidity. He remains the artist who made the mixtape an essential piece of the commercial rap ecosystem.