It’s no surprise that New Orleans rap veteran Lil Wayne doesn’t see a lot of what happens on social media. After all, this is a man who didn’t realize Quality Control and TDE were the names of music labels or know which rappers were on those labels, despite working with some of them. But a new revelation in an interview for Los Angeles Times strains belief, even for the notoriously insulated Lil Wayne.
When he was asked whether he got “a lot of pushback” for meeting with Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 elections, Wayne responded simply, “Nah, not at all” — a reply that suggests that Wayne somehow missed a wave of backlash from fans and peers that included mockery from 50 Cent and speculation that he was offered either paid for his public support in order to pander to a younger audience for Trump or offered a pardon on recent gun charges that would have sent him away for up to 10 years. Lil Wayne himself denied the accusation that the move was self-serving at the time, and sticks to a similar line of reasoning here, stating he believes “progress is always possible,” even in light of all the evidence to the contrary wihen it came to Trump’s rhetoric and policies.
Of course, it is entirely possible he just missed all the public pushback. Elsewhere in the interview, he claims to be unaware of the biggest rap controversy of the last several weeks, the fallout from DaBaby’s Rolling Loud performance. Although Wayne said he didn’t keep up with the spate of festival cancelations that followed, he did have some opinions on social media: “You know how it does,” he said. “The spotlight on artists and celebrities is absolutely crazy. You don’t even have to be a celebrity. Even normal people can feel like they’re wrong because their 200 followers said something. But that’s the power of social media today.”
Check out the full interview here.