When Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter V finally arrived Thursday night, fans quickly noticed two big names missing on the credits: Drake and Post Malone.
In the days leading up to the album’s release, we received several reports about the rappers’ rumored cameos. Drake was reportedly on a track with Wayne’s ex-girlfriend Nivea, and Posty was supposedly added to the project last minute. These whispers seemed legitimate and completely believable, considering Drizzy’s history with Wayne and Malone’s dominance within the current hip-hop realm.
So, what exactly happened?
According to artist Johnny Yukon, both megastars had contributed to Tha Carter V’s “What About Me” track; but, unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.
“The initial idea was to get Drake on it,” Yukon toldRolling Stone. “That was something [Lil Wayne] said to me that night [he recorded his vocals]… Then there were emails back and forth—‘They think Drake’s going to get on it.'”
Yukon, who wrote the track in 2015, continued: “The last thing we heard about it, around a year and a half ago, while we were sending the song back and forth, making edits …. at that point, the emails were like, ‘Drake’s gonna cut to it’ […] I don’t know what happened. We didn’t find out that Drake was officially not going to be on it until this week.”
Once they learned Drake wouldn’t be on the track, Wayne and team began looking for another big-name feature. Enter Malone.
“There is a version [of ‘What About Me’] that Post cut literally this week,” Yukon explained. “[But] something happened, I don’t know what. Something got delivered wrong. That all happened last night.”
Though some fans were disappointed by the rappers’ absence, Yukon insists he’s happy by “What About Me’s” reception.
“It’s been incredible to watch the reaction, people saying, ‘I didn’t know we were getting this Wayne on this [album],’” he said about Wayne’s R&B-infused sing-song flow.
You can read Yukon’s full interview at Rolling Stone’s website.
