Rap royalty Lil Wayne was given a superstar's sendoff to jail in New York during the first week of March, set to serve 8 months of a one-year sentence for weapons possession. Surrounded by reporters and fans alike, shouts of "Weezy! We love you! "Yo, keep your head up, Weezy!" resounded throughout the Manhattan Courtroom, as the famous rapper was cuffed.
With good behavior, rapper Lil Wayne will spend only eight months of the year sentence, in protective custody on New York's Rikers Island. Lil Wayne's troubles lead to the .40-caliber Springfield Armory semi-automatic gun that police discovered in the rapper's private, pot smoke-infused tour bus following his concert two years ago at the Beacon Theater. Hmm...sounds like the police were looking for something; it's a little unclear as to why the police were snooping around a private tour bus, but that's another story.
The Grammy-winning artist-- nicknamed "Weezy" -- who has made upward of $50 million a tour, will continue making music in jail, said lawyer Stacey Richman. "He's an unstoppable musician and creator," she said. In Court, Lil Wayn's performance following the arrest and sentencing has been subdued. Slouching at the Defense table, dressed simply in a gray hooded jacket and baggy black jeans, Lil Wayne said virtually nothing during Court proceedings and final hearing. Asked by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon if he wanted to speak before sentencing, the rapper shook his head without speaking, "No." "Nothing at all?" repeated the judge. Lil Wayne shook his head again.
Lil Wayne's attorney has repeatedly claimed that the gun belonged to another, uncharged associate of the rapper who was on the bus at the time, and was willing to accept responsibility and charges related to the loaded weapon that police found. Prosecutors took a hard line, insisting that "possession," under the strict legal sense of the word and in accordance with the law, means having control or "dominion" over the gun,which doesn't necessarily mean outright ownership of a weapon. Result: police wanted to arrest and prosecute rapper Lil Wayne, whether the gun belongs to him or not. Sounds a bit like a gray area, especially considering the following:
Police officers who boarded Lil Wayne's tour bus in 2007 claimed that they saw the rapper toss the gun into a Louis Vuitton knapsack. The expensive Vuitton knapsack also contained a prescription bearing Lil Wayne's given name, Dwayne Carter, police said, and contents belonging to the rapper insinuate the pack to be his possession. If the police saw Lil Wayne put the gun into his own pack, it's a little unclear as to why the police are making such a huge deal over arguing the "dominion" issue-sounds a bit like they didn't have much of a case in proving Lil Wayne's ownership.
Now that Lil Wayne is slated to spend at least 8 months in jail following several delays, the reality is setting in for his fans and friends. No one in the hip-hop community wants to see Weezy leave, and other rappers also realize they need to be aware of police-related instances in Wayne's absence.
Young Jeezy said he'll not only miss Wayne's work ethic and music, but also his friend's rebellious attitude.
"Wayne, like I like to call myself, is a trap-aholic," Young Jeezy told MTV News last week in New York, hours before he brought Weezy onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York, as a surprise guest during Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 Tour. The performance — which also included Nicki Minaj and Drake — would be Wayne's last before he went to jail on March 8.
"He [Lil Wayne] stays in the studio, he stays working," the Snowman added. "We'll definitely miss that. At the same time, we'll definitely miss what he brings to the game as far as him just being Wayne and doing what the f--- he wanna do. We definitely gonna miss that. But it's just an eye-opener to all of us. Instead of targeting the hustlers and the people trying to make it in the streets, now that the streets is dried up, now [the police] are targeting the entertainers and the athletes, what have you. Real talk, not trying to preach to the choir, we gotta be careful out here. What I mean to my culture is more than me proving a point."
Diddy echoed the thoughts, that police are keeping a very close eye on the hip-hop community. "I think we gonna miss a certain energy that [Lil] Wayne has," Diddy said. "The beauty about it is, he'll be back, and hopefully he'll come back a better person. Whenever we get in trouble, we're in the public spotlight. So hopefully there's a lot of kids out there who could learn from any mistakes that we may have put ourselves in, even if we're not guilty of the crime sometimes. We are human. People have to learn: 'Make sure you know where you're going, who you riding with, what the situation is.' We're targets. I'm just happy he doesn't have to do a lot of time [in jail] and that he'll be out, and hopefully he'll use the time wisely and use it in a positive way.
"It's evident that nobody's safe. That's reality," Lloyd Banks added about rappers not being above the law, with Lil Wayne going to jail on the heels of T.I. and Gucci Mane. Banks currently has an assault case pending in Canada. "People make mistakes," says Banks "have poor judgments sometimes, and things happen. Hopefully, all those artists can bounce back from it stronger and use that time [in jail] to be more creative. Come back home and get right back to where they was at. It's something that's always been around. We been talking about [rappers going to jail] since Tupac."
Out of a strange turn of circumstances, Lil Wayne's sentencing has been cancelled on three previous occasions before completion -- once because the rapper needed to complete major dental surgery, twice thereafter due to a fire and the resulting repair delays at the courthouse stemming from blaze damages.