The Heartwarming Story Of Rapper Lil Wayne And The Cop Who Saved His Life

While many modern rap artists have a contentious relationship with law enforcement, Lil Wayne stands out as a glaring exception to this rule. The 39-year-old Grammy Award winner can’t forget the time a white police officer saved him after a botched suicide attempt at the age of 12. Now he speaks up for cops because of what one did for him.

Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., reiterated his personal stance on police as anti-cop rhetoric reached a fever pitch in 2020 following the death of George Floyd.

“My life was saved when I was young,” he told listeners during an appearance on Apple Music’s Young Money Radio in June of that year. “I was 12 or something, I think. Shot myself. I was saved by a white cop, Uncle Bob. So you have to understand … you have to understand the way I view police, period. I was saved by a white cop.”

“There was a bunch of black cops jumped over me when they saw me at that door, laying on the floor with that hole in my chest. He refused to,” Carter continued. “Those black cops jumped over me, and ran through the crib, and said, ‘We found the gun, we found this, we found that.’ He said, ‘I found this baby on this floor. I need to get to a hospital.’ He didn’t wait for an ambulance. He took his car. He made somebody drive it, and he made sure that I lived.”

The “Lollipop” singer had talked about his experience with “Uncle Bob” (former officer Robert Hoobler) even before sharing that incredible story in 2020. 

At the 2018 BET Hip-Hop Awards, Carter described how Uncle Bob treated him following the shooting. 

“He brought me to the hospital himself. He refused to wait, he kicked in the doors. He said, ‘You get whatever you gotta do and you make sure this child make it’ … Not only did he refuse to sit, not only [didn’t] he give me to the doctors and leave, he refused to leave, he stayed and made sure that I made it.” 

As for perceived racism among police, Carter admits it does exist but cautions critics to take a look at individual officers, not to vilify the law enforcement profession as a whole. 

The Daily Wire reported in May 2020 that Lil Wayne asked people to  be “very specific” when reacting to Floyd’s death and other headlines and to not blame the “entire force” or an “entire race.”

“I think when we see these situations, I think we also have to understand that we have to get very specific,” Wayne told rapper Fat Joe via Instagram Live, according to Rap Up. “We have to get so specific and what I mean by that, we have to stop viewing it from such a broad view, meaning we have to stop placing the blame on the whole force and the whole everybody of a certain race or everybody with a badge.”

“We have to get into who that person is,” he continued. “If we want to place the blame on anybody, it should be ourselves for not doing more than what we think we’re doing.”

The rapper insisted that many activists are quick to act before knowing all the details. He defended staying silent on controversies surrounding racial injustice simply because he’s not sure what really happened. 

“The reason people always ask me why you don’t say this, why you don’t do that, what else am I gonna do after that?” Carter said. “Some people put a tweet out and they think they did something. Some people wear a shirt, they think they did something.”

“I mean, what you gon’ do after that?” Wayne emphasized. “Did you actually help the person? Did you actually help the family? Did you actually go out and do something?”

“If I ain’t about to do all that, then I ain’t about to do nothing,” he continued. “I pray for them.”

Carter said protestors need to have clear goals when they demonstrate for change.

“What we need to do, we need to learn about it more,” he said. “If we want to scream about something, know what we’re screaming about. You wanna protest about something, know what we protesting about.”

“It’s a bunch of facts that we think we know that we don’t know,” the hip hop star concluded. “If we want to get into it, know what we talkin’ about before we talk about it.”

As for experiencing racism, the top-selling artist has a surprising take as well. Wayne discussed how he’s been blessed enough to avoid it mostly while commenting on Colin Kaepernick kneeling in protest during the national anthem at NFL games in 2016. 

“I have never, you know never is a strong word, dealt with racism, and I’m glad I didn’t have to. I don’t know if it’s because of

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