Lil Wayne has defended Ja Morant following his second suspension of the season for flashing a gun on social media.
Appearing on the latest episode of Showtime’s All the Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Weezy was asked for his thoughts on the NBA star’s controversial off-court behavior.
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Wayne explained that instead of rushing to judge Ja Morant, he tried to put himself in his shoes and compared it to how he felt when he was a young artist coming up in the game with money.
“The best I could do is remember when I was younger and my homies, my squad, my n-ggas around me, at the age where they don’t have money,” he said. “I’m the one with the money, and I don’t even know how much money I’ll end up with, but I’m the one with some money in my pocket — I know I got a bright future.
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“My homies, they ain’t on a payroll. They my homies, they live good when they with me. When I gotta go to work and all that, they gotta go back to being who they gotta be. So what I’m saying that to say, they in them streets and I was aware of that.”
He continued: “So if I was going through something at that point in time, something public what slime going through, I could imagine the rebellious attitude I would have if my homies is egging that attitude on.”
Lil Wayne went on to point out that Ja Morant is a small-town kid who has come into millions of dollars, while reflecting on his own experience with guns despite coming from a loving family.
“Do y’all know that boy? ‘Cause I don’t,” he said. “I know him from dunking and jumping, and I only started knowing him when I started paying attention to him in his last year of college. He come from like a town with 3,000 people. Like, what? What y’all expect? Y’all gave him $200 million.
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“I just said, a town with 3,000 people. You expect him to be responsible? Now we tripping. That’s magic. ‘Cause I could tell you now, I come from a real well-raised, beautiful mother, nice, you know what I mean? My mama would bust her ass to make sure everything around me was nice, and I still was a knucklehead. I shot myself.”
He added: “And that young man, I could imagine if I came from a fucking place with 3,000 people and I became who I am.”
Lil Wayne also recalled a conversation he had with Young Money cohort Gudda Gudda and one of his younger artists in an attempt to understand Ja Morant’s mindset.
“They came up with no answer for why he doing it,” he said. “They said, ‘To answer your question, since we don’t know that of him, we’ll answer you of what we do know. We do know he plays basketball and he plays real fucking good.
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“‘But what we don’t know is, if he’s that great of a fucking gangsta, you know what I mean? He’s that great of a damn basketball player, we know that. We don’t know if he’s that great of whatever else you being.'”
The Memphis Grizzlies suspended Ja Morant from all team activities on May 14 after the All-Star guard brandished a gun on Instagram Live while in a car with friends. The incident came just two months after he was suspended for eight games over a similar incident.
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Morant broke his silence on the situation by issuing a statement on Tuesday (May 16) and took responsibility for his actions.
“I know I’ve disappointed a lot of people who have supported me,” he said via his agent. “This is a journey and I recognize there is more work to do. My words may not mean much right now, but I take full accountability for my actions. I’m committed to continuing to work on myself.”
