Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. (born September 27, 1982 in New Orleans, Louisiana), better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. Formerly a member of the rap group the Hot Boys, he joined the Cash Money Records collective as a teenager. Get It How U Live, released in 1997, was Lil Wayne's first album with Hot Boys, and Tha Block is Hot, his solo debut, came out in 1999.
After gaining fame with two other albums in the early 2000s, Lil Wayne reached higher popularity with 2004's Tha Carter and its two subsequent albums Tha Carter II (2005) and Tha Carter III (2008). He earned various accolades following Tha Carter III, including being nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He will release a rock album titled Rebirth in 2009.
Lil Wayne grew up in the Hollygrove neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana.[1] Carter enrolled in the gifted program of Lafayette Elementary School and in the drama club of Eleanor McMain Secondary School.[2][3] He wrote his first rap song at age eight.[4] At age eleven, he met Bryan Williams, rapper and owner of Cash Money Records. Lil Wayne recorded freestyle raps on Williams' answering machine; Williams would eventually mentor the young Carter and include him in Cash Money-distributed songs.[5] When he was 12, he played the part of the Tin Man in his middle school drama club's production of The Wiz.[6] He dropped out of school at age 14.[ Wayne has two daughters. One was born when he was a teenager[4], and another named Reginae Carter with his high school sweetheart Antonia "Toya" Johnson. Carter and Johnson married on Valentines Day of 2004 and divorced in 2006.[68] His newborn son, Dwayne Carter III, was born on October 22, 2008 at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati.[69]
After earning his GED, Wayne enrolled at the University of Houston in January 2005 with plans to major in political science.[70] To earn his degree, he had been taking online courses,[4] An article in Urb magazine in March 2007 asserted that Wayne had been earning high grades at Houston,[71] and by the end of the year Wayne discontinued his education there.

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