Like Father Like Son

A Cash Money cult favorite, 2006’s *Like Father, Like Son* collaboration marked the label’s official torch-passing from Birdman to his surrogate son. Lil Wayne’s solo work was getting weirder, but this was Southern rap at its purest. “Stuntin’ Like My Daddy” stomps like a rogue brass band, and “Over Here Hustlin’” blends Wayne’s free-associative freestyles with Big Tymers-era Birdman, spitting game over grimy organs. “I’m one sell-out record away from being famous,” Wayne rapped on slow jam “Don’t Die”—and he wasn’t wrong.

In the impoverished Hollygrove district of New Orleans, circa 1993, a hungry and aspiring 11-year-old rapper by the name of Dwayne Carter met Brian