Drake and Lil Wayne have raised eyebrows after it was revealed that they used a teleprompter during a recent performance.
Drizzy brought out Weezy as a special guest at his show in Sunrise, Florida on Saturday (March 23) as part of his It’s All a Blur — Big as the What? Tour.
After the concert, a video made the rounds online of Lil Wayne relying on a teleprompter attached to the stage while performing his “Right Above It” collaboration with Drake.
The user who shared the clip took issue with the autocue, comparing their performance to “karaoke.”
“I have a question about this video of Drake and Lil Wayne… Is it normal that rappers have teleprompters with their lyrics on it?” they wrote. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before. So it’s karaoke then?”
Despite the current debate surrounding the quality of performances from rap acts, Wayne fans were quick to jump to his defense and point out the sheer number of songs and verses he’s written in his lengthy career.
“Lil Wayne has 3,051 songs on Genius. He has a song entitled 10,000 bars which has 7k words. If Weezy needs a teleprompter that’s ok,” the account Hip Hop By The Numbers argued.
Another user said: “A rapper like Wayne to have a LONG impressive discography in that case should be normalized to have a teleprompter.”
Lil Wayne himself has spoken about the challenge of remembering his lyrics. Back in 2020, he hosted Eminem on his Young Money Radio show where they admitted they both research their own rhymes in order to avoid repeating lines.
“When we first start out, it’s a blank canvas,” Em said. “We start painting on that canvas until that shit’s full. But when you’ve made so many song about everything, it gets a little tricky. The trick is to do the next one and keeping it going, do the next one with a little twist.”
Wayne added: “If you look in my phone history, with Google history, and you press the letter L, it comes up ‘Lil Wayne Lyrics.’ I literally have to Google my own lyrics to make sure I didn’t say certain stuff before.”
Em replied: “Oh my God! I swear to God I do that too! I just did that shit last night. Man, that’s funny as hell. I been doing that for the past five years! You be like, ‘Oh, I knew I flipped this before.’
“It’s crazy because when you’re really into the craft you gotta come up with a new pocket, a new cadence, melodies. You can’t do the same flows, none of that.”
That approach was on full display in 2022 when Lil Wayne was caught Googling the lyrics to his song “Shooter” while dueting with Robin Thicke.
weezy’s brain is fried from all that smoke and lean. still the goat
It’s either that or lip synching. Most of these people do a lot of drugs and have thousands of songs. Unrealistic for them to remember the lyrics to these obscure songs.
These guys are so lame and garbage. Wayne did too much drugs and fell off that skateboard too many times. Meanwhile, that other guy is a manufactured phony. An actor that plays a rapper like the great Big Pun said.
No one gives a fuck what you think though.
Obviously you do because you took the time to respond. Thank you for taking the time to share whats on your mind though.
Only idiots think MCs go up there with no screen to help along. It’s the same as monitors. just helps the artist keep track of where they are in the track without a band to give cues. Only clowns think it’s some sort of fraud
This should officially mark a kind of death for the music industry. In fact, music should have no “industry” at all if fans should return to valuing art and artists who are producing something to the world that’s reflective of their themselves and their genuine perspectives instead of attempting to appeal to listeners to merely “sell” them something. Our musics tastes and overall appreciation for the arts have declined commensurate with our consumption. In other words, nothing should shock us if we continue to endlessly wet our appetites for the “next” thing as opposed to appreciating greatness when its before us.
From an art purists’ perspective, we can not begin to make exceptions for artists for this kind of performance regardless of our reverence for them. I am a huge Wayne fan and always will be. I would have been upset if I paid money to see a musician or artist perform and they then proceeded to read words from a teleprompter. In the genre of rap, reading from a teleprompter degrades the value of the art form, if we still believe it to be one (or if we still want it to be one).
Maybe current fans of music are okay with this. That concerts act as an event and an “experience” versus a performance displaying exceptional musical or artistic ability. That for the case of Drake and Lil Wayne, the music they make together is more about where the music is played as opposed to the song itself. At least I would expect this to be the argument one would have to make to justify the use of a teleprompter during a performance. Or maybe Wayne has some underlying health issue that is impacting his ability to memorize lyrics to the same capacity that he once was able. In this case, he should take a break from touring or pursue management or another kind of role in the interim while he recovers.
To put it bluntly, I hope to never see something like this again from a genre that I love. If Aubrey Drake Graham is the artist we are championing of musical and artistic greatness in the category of Hip Hop, then this is a disgrace and we can not allow this to happen. If the genre is predicated on lyrics that are derived from personal experience, reflections or observations in life – no different from poetry or other forms of written art – , to read lyrics from a teleprompter indicates a loss of connection with the lyrics or possibly that the artist in question has momentarily lost investment in their craft. The lyrics are no longer a part of them.
It’s popular rhetoric today to say that certain hip hop fans do not like Drake because of his massive commercial success. While I think Drake has obviously chosen a certain route to his stardom and popularity, he does have undeniably great bodies of art in his discography. Though moments like these give validity to the criticisms expressed by quote “hip hop purists”.
Mos Def’s most recent interview about Drake and the state of music was an astute observation and premonition of sorts. But the beauty is that we as fans have to opportunity to change this. Its just a matter of defining one’s own values, living by them and knowing what one cannot accept. A microcosm of a much larger conversation and action that must take place.
Or maybe we’re all fools for even considering any of this music. This is entertainment. Full stop. And entertainment is all smoke and mirrors. Only about presenting an image and has nothing to do with anything really substantive. Only the illusion of substance.
Or maybe we’re all fools for considering any of this music at this point. This is entertainment. Full stop. Perhaps any kind of judging or critique of musicians or artists or “musical artists” should be viewed from this perspective. All entertainment is is about smoke and mirrors. Presenting an image. That’s it. Nothing to do with substance but just the illusion of substance. So who are we to be mad when we pay for something that we know is not about the craft but about the experience we are getting in being entertained.