Meek Mill has revealed that JAY-Z and Lil Wayne were the ones who motivated him to stop writing down lyrics as part of his creative process.
On Tuesday (June 11), Lil Wayne stopped by The Pivot Podcast for a chat, during which Weezy was asked if JAY-Z’s practice of carrying lyrics in his head till he records them influenced his approach to writing.
“The moment I heard that [he didn’t write his lyrics down], I stopped,” the Young Money founder said. “The moment I heard that [hand gesturing a phone call] ‘Man, I heard that n-gga JAY-Z don’t write,’ [I] don’t write no more.”
On Thursday (July 13), Meek Mill took to his Instagram Stories to share that he adopted the same practice because of both rappers. Sharing a clip of the podcast appearance, the Philly native wrote: “I stop writing lyrics down when I see jayz then I seen Wayne do it next! #superfact.”
In the same interview, Wayne also stated that the last time he rapped pre-written lyrics was over two decades ago. “We went in the studio and we did ‘10,000 Bars’ and that was the last time I rapped anything off of a paper,” he said.
The track Wayne was referencing is a 35-minute song from 2002 featuring the former Hot Boys rapper spitting the last of his written rhymes in a rapid-fire fashion over an assortment of pieces while the pieces of paper being discarded are even picked up by the microphone.
In June, Wayne recalled a time that Birdman chewed him out for allegedly trying to sound like JAY-Z when he was rapping.
“When you find a favorite artist, you’re going to start sounding like them,” he told Rolling Stone. “It took Birdman and them to pull my ass aside and be like, ‘Bro, I’m tired of every song you doing sounding like damn JAY-Z. You’re not JAY-Z.’”
Jay and Lil Wayne have long had a competitive relationship while collaborating on tracks like DJ Khaled’s “GOD DID,” Tha Carter III’s “Mr. Carter,” “Hello Brooklyn 2.0” and “Swagga Like Us.”
