Around the time Mr. Carter (2008) was dropped, during the late-aughts, Lil Wayne was the hottest rapper in the game and deservedly so, considering he’s a master lyricist. Arguably in the entire history of industry rap, no artist has been more consistent in dropping clever metaphors than Weezy.
After coming out with a string of hits from the late-aughts into the mid-2010s, Wayne’s career was derailed in a way it never fully recuperated from. This was the result of his beef with Birdman and Weezy’s highly-anticipated album, Tha Carter V (2018), being delayed by a whopping five years. That setback allowed Wayne to be dethroned as the young king of rap and opened the door for other, questionable acts to blow up in his place. So during his heyday, Weezy never fell off in the truest sense of the term.
The reason I’m bringing all of that up is to acknowledge Wayne for the lyrical genius that he is. As a testament to that reality and in the name of further documenting celebrity references to Stevie Wonder, I decided to tersely highlight the aforementioned Mr. Carter. But first, let’s have a brief look at the publicly known aspects of Wayne’s relationship with Stevie.
“STEVIE WONDER” BY LIL WAYNE (2019)
In 2019, Weezy actually recorded a track titled “Stevie Wonder”. According to the Instagram account thegoattunechi, this song was considered for the playlist of Wayne’s Funeral album, which came out the following year. It didn’t make the cut but did manage to leak a couple of months ago, circa June 2024.
To note, this isn’t a Stevie tribute piece but rather revolves around Weezy questioning “p*ssy nigga(s)” as to “what they’re looking at”. These individuals, i.e. Carter’s haters and rivals, are “blind to the facts”, i.e. dispositioned towards underestimating Wayne. But contrastingly, even ‘Stevie Wonder can see him coming’. So basically, Tunechi is using Wonder’s blindness as the basis of a braggadocious metaphor pointing to his own greatness.
STEVIE CHASTISES LIL WAYNE (2013)
Some may consider that metaphor as a tasteless choice on the part of Wayne. But to some extent so has his relationship been with Stevie.
According to AP News, back in 2013 Wonder confirmed that not only was he and Tunechi homeys, but he also feels Weezy’s music. However, the reason their association became the subject of media interest at the time is because Stevie was compelled to chastise Wayne over a certain line he uttered as a feature on Future‘s Karate Cop (Remix).
During that particular outing, Mr. Carter opted to reference Emmett Till, the victim of one of the most infamous race-based lynchings in US history, in relation to his own sexual prowess. In response Wonder, a humanitarian who has also been heavily involved in civil rights and propagating racial harmony, called Weezy out.
Reportedly, part of Stevie’s argument was that particular line should have never been approved for public issuance by the label(s) involved. That’s a valid point, as rappers are allowed the freedom to drop indelicate lyrics more so than any other genre of mainstream American musician. But that’s a discussion for another day.
STEVIE REFERENCE IN “AWKWARD” (2013)
The day after Wonder criticized Wayne for those Emmett Till lyrics, a Tunechi track titled Awkward was released in which he actually mentions “Stevie”. Awkward is a NSFW sex song. However, said reference is not used in that context per se but basically points to Wayne’s girlfriend missing him.
STEVIE WONDER SHOUOUT IN “MR. CARTER” (2008)
What really inspired me to write this post was the namedrop Wayne gave Wonder on Mr. Carter, one of his 2008 collaborations with Jay-Z. As with the others, said namedropping also alludes to Wonder’s lack of sight, in relation to Weezy’s self-perceived greatness. But on Mr. Carter, which was officially released (as a single), Wayne mentioned Stevie with more tact than he did in those other cases.
Also, this is just speculation. But I’m compelled to believe that during the first verse of Mr. Carter, Tunechi was lyrically inspired by Wonder.
Wayne used that opportunity to drop a few bars whereas the four seasons are used as figures of speech, alluding to his success. As someone who has researched countless songs and musicians, I can tell you that successfully pulling off such a feat, i.e. using the seasons as metaphors, is not an easy task and should only be left up to the most-talented lyricists.
Stevie of course did so, throughout an entire song in fact, on 1976’s Summer Soft. And I believe, considering that Wayne mentioned Wonder during the same verse, that those particular lines from Mr. Carter may have been inspired by Summer Soft. And with that said, Mr. Carter is one of Wayne’s most-impressive lyrical outings.
CONCLUSION
Stevie Wonder is the type of musician who’s influence on subsequent generations is unquantifiable. So it is when you’ve had his type of career and has been in the game as long as he has. So Lil Wayne’s Stevie Wonder reference in Mr. Carter, in combination with the season-inspired lyrics which follow shortly thereafter, has always stood out to me as being peculiar. Perhaps we’ll never know for the record, but I do believe that in that case, Weezy was directly inspired by Wonder’s own lyricism. However, it’s unlikely that Wayne, as talented as he is, will ever reach the point where he can compose an entire song based on seasonal metaphors like Summer Soft.