Lil Wayne’s birth father left him and his mother while he was just an infant, he was raised by a step father named Reginald Carter who died when Lil Wayne was 16. Wayne now considers Baby aka Birdman, the founder of Cash Money, to be his father, and expresses immense amounts of love and loyalty for him. His rapping first started to get noticed at neighborhood block parties, by the age of 13 he had dropped out of school to pursue rap full time. In 1997, Dwayne formed the Hot Boys with Juvenile, B.G., and Turk.

In August of 2006 Lil Wayne was arrested on marijuana and controlled substance charges. He was caught with 60 pills of Alprazolam (Xanax), and 59 Hydrocodone pills, and some marijuana in the form of joint roaches. He was charged and released on $11,000 bail.