Should Lil Wayne sue DJ Drama?

I thought Lil Wayne was over his beef with mixtape DJs.

You might remember, about a year ago, when Lil Wayne went off on mixtape DJs in the run up to the release of Tha Carter III. He said something along the lines of, "If you're a mixtape DJ, you can go fuck yourself."

Mixtape DJs got all up in arms about it, and it was thought - by people who spend too much time on the Internets and lack the sense god gave geese - that this might affect the sales of Tha Carter III. As I mentioned here the other day, I thought Tha Carter III wasn't gonna sell very well because the music on it was gonna suck balls, but I knew better than to think that mixtape DJs could harm Lil Wayne's album sales.

When Tha Carter III went on to become the best-selling rap album of 2008, it basically proved that mixtape DJs like DJ Drama are worthless. They're like the IRL equivalent of one of these Nah Right-like hip-hop blogs - they don't provide much, if anything in the way of added value. To the extent that a mixtape like those Dedication tapes Wayne did with Drama is a worthwhile listen, it's because of Wayne's involvement. Any ol' d-bag could have stitched together a bunch of exclusive Lil Wayne records and shouted over them. If it would have DJ Drama and Charles Hamilton present Dedication 2, no one would have given a shit.

I'm assuming this was Wayne's thought process when he got it in his mind that he ought to sue DJ Drama. He probably arrived at the end of a two year period in which he'd been working like a Hebrew slave putting together those mixtapes and realized he hadn't made any money from it. Then he saw on TV where the the FBI, and the ATF, and the Department of Homeland Security, and so on and so forth raided DJ Drama's studio in Atlanta, and carted off all of those boxes of Lil Wayne mixtapes, and towed away his fleet of Mercedes Benzes, and he thought to himself, How in the fuck does this yellow ninja have a studio in Atlanta and a fleet of Mercedes Benzes, and we don't even know for a fact that he knows how to mix records?

Good question.

Then I saw where Wayne had gone on Drama's show on satellite radio and patched things up with him, and I figured Drama must have somehow convinced him that only Drama and some random African dudes who may or may not be with the terrorists deserve to benefit from the years of hard work that he put into those mixtapes, not Wayne himself. It probably wasn't that difficult, given the amount of drugs Lil Wayne takes. DJ Drama probably saw him coming and was like, "Here, have some sizzurp!" And you know how it is when you meet someone in person and you lose any and all sense of personal conviction you might have had. It's what people mean when they say you'd never say what you said on the Internets to them in person. It's not that girls are gonna punch you in the face or anything, they're just counting on politeness to trump actual propriety.

But I digress.

All of a sudden, I'm hearing more rumblings about rumblings about Lil Wayne suing DJ Drama, and I'm not sure what to think. Was Lil Wayne bullshitting DJ Drama when they patched things up last year and, as I recall, ended up working together on another mixtape and now he's going for the kill, or is this a matter of Lil Wayne's handlers acting on his behalf and Wayne himself being mostly oblivious? I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter, given the recent confusion over whether or not Lil Wayne is putting out a rock album. Wayne's handlers might not even have his cell. Either way, Drama might want to watch out. Despite Wayne's claim, last time around, that he was mostly pissed at Empire, I don't even see Empire named in this suit. It's just Drama, a bunch of names of companies Drama does business under, and some distribution company, which I'm assuming is those Africans who may or may not be with the terrorists. That sizzurp shit probably isn't gonna work this time.

My guess is that Lil Wayne's handlers could give a rat's ass whether or not Lil Wayne is cool with DJ Drama, as Drama claimed in his brief statement on the matter. They don't get paid unless Lil Wayne gets paid, and they're looking around at all of the money being made from Lil Wayne's shit that's not going to Lil Wayne himself and they decided to put their foot down. The thing is, they're probably acting in Lil Wayne's best interest, regardless of whether or not he's aware of it - or aware of where he is right now, for that matter. For all of the work Lil Wayne put into those mixtapes, he should benefit. If guys like DJ Drama benefit at all, it shouldn't be nearly as much.