Lil Wayne is one of the rare emcees revered by OGs and newcomers alike. Easily one of the game's most versatile rappers of all time, Weezy stands unafraid to explore whatever musical instinct he sees fit.
He made a rock album, the initially panned Rebirth, only for it to slyly influence a generation of rock-inspired hip-hop. He found commercial success through radio-friendly hits like "Lollipop," bangers beloved on a universal level. For the purists, he gave himself room to experiment by consistently spitting incredible bars on the mixtape circuit, to the point where his best rapper alive claim holds undeniable credibility. And that's not even factoring in his casual use of autotune, which has become par for the course in today's most popular sound.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
It's no wonder that many of today's current rap superstars hold Lil Wayne in high esteem, including his own collaborator Lil Baby. In fact, Baby actually believes Wayne to be a kindred spirit, confirming as much during a recent appearance on EST Gee's new song "5500 Degrees," which flips a Cash Money classic in Juvenile's "400 Degreez."
During the track, Lil Baby dubs himself the Lil Wayne of his current generation, though he neglects to go into further detail on the matter. "I'm going too crazy, I'm the Wayne of this new generation," he spits. “N***as fugazi, they can't fuck with us no types of ways/ these n***as too lazy / I'm cut from a different cloth, I don't know who raised em'.”
Rich Fury/Getty Images
Big shoes to fill, and while Lil Baby is not quite competing with Weezy when it comes to the bars (though he certainly snaps on "5500 Degrees"), they both scale quite high in the influence department. To be fair, Lil Baby's career is still relatively young; perhaps one day we'll see him switching up the style and firing off a string of bar-heavy Best Rapper Alive mixtapes one of the days. What do you make of Lil Baby's comparison, as made on EST Gee's "5500?"
LISTEN: EST GEE ft Lil Baby, 42 Dugg, & Rylo Rodriguez