Having a museum honor you with an exhibit on your 40th birthday would be a dream-come-true kind of gift. So Lil Wayne was understandably thrilled when he learned in early September the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville wanted to do just that.
“Obviously, I was beyond humbled for them to even consider me to be a part of it,” the rap superstar says, speaking by phone recently from his home in Southern California. “Also, they did it around my birthday, so it was awesome.”
The exhibit, which debuted on the actual anniversary of his birth (Sept. 27), covers the breadth of Lil Wayne’s career, from his beginnings in the late ’90s with the Hot Boy$ through his 2018 I Am Hip Hop award from BET.
“The main thing was showing the arc of his career from his youth, when he was 14 or 15 years old being signed, and then going to the end where he achieved the icon award with BET,” says the exhibit’s primary curator, Dr. Bryan Pierce, speaking to a visitor on a recent tour.
The show runs through Dec. 27 and features more than 25 pieces from Wayne’s professional life, including his wardrobe from the first Hot Boy$ press shoot, his 2009 Best Rap Album Grammy for Tha Carter III, a letter he wrote to his fans during his eight-month incarceration at Rikers Island and a pair of his red Tunechi Beats headphones, a limited-edition collaboration with Beats by Dre. In addition, two platinum singles from Tha Carter III — “A Milli” and “Lollipop” — are featured in the museum’s interactive rap studio.
“I’ve had so many amazing moments — thank God — throughout my career, which has never been work for me anyway,” the artist born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. says. “So we were able to narrow it down to a bunch of specific moments.”
The jailhouse letter included in the exhibit has particular special meaning for Lil Wayne. It was one of several he wrote to his fans during his confinement and posted to a special website, Weezy Thanx You.
“It was the first letter I ever wrote to my fans, and it was just letting them know I’m OK and updating them on the situation,” he explains. “It was kind of my version of social media. So it was me locked up knowing that I had fans worrying about if I’m OK — how it’s going? So the letters actually helped me get through that time being able to connect with my fans on a deep and personal level.”
The idea for the exhibit came together after visual marketing maven Richelle Cross paid a visit to the museum in August.
“One of the board members who lives in Nashville, Phil Thornton, invited me to come see the museum,” Cross recalls by phone from her offices in Atlanta. “I went there towards the end of August and was just really impressed. I made mention of how much I would like to do something with some of the artists I promote, and obviously, Lil Wayne, you know, was one.”
Cross, who has worked with Lil Wayne for 25 years and whom he calls a second mom, sent an email to his team that same weekend.
“I said, ‘You’ll have to see this museum,’ ” she says. “ ‘We need to do something because this is such a great place, especially with the 50th anniversary of hip-hop coming up next year.’ The general manager of Young Money Entertainment, Karen Civil, wrote me back and said, ‘What a great idea. Let’s do it. Is it possible for us to do something to commemorate Wayne’s 40th birthday?’ And I said, ‘That would be awesome, but it’s only three weeks away.’ ”
Despite the short lead time, the museum gave the exhibit the green light. “Shout-out to Dr. Pierce, because he was the curator I worked with daily for those three weeks,” Cross says. “But also the chief marketing officer Dion Brown, and obviously, the CEO Henry Hicks. Their whole team did an amazing job to pull everything together in three weeks.”
“It was a lot of work — and sleepless nights,” Pierce acknowledges. “We would be on the phone sometimes at like 1 o’clock in the morning, tightening up the information, making adjustments to the narrative. I was just trying to do the best I could to do justice to the subject because he deserves it.”
Students from area colleges and universities were invited to attend the exhibit’s opening night festivities. The evening included a presentation in the museum’s Roots Theater that featured a video from Lil Wayne and remarks from Cross as his representative, plus a livestreamed discussion of the rapper’s career and influence by a pair of Vanderbilt University professors: Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Centennial Chair and university distinguished professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, and Dr. Gillum Sharpley, associate chair of African American & Diaspora Studies.
Lil Wayne is the first rapper to have an exhibit at the museum, and the significance of that is not lost on him.
“It’s more than an honor just to be included,” says Lil Wayne. “When you get a call that the National Museum of African American Music wants to honor you — that they even noticed me — that’s something you tell your mom about and make her proud.”
