Lil Wayne is being accused of misleading the US government about his marijuana use in order to get a pandemic loan approved.
Last week (March 11), Business Insider published a report in which it states that Wayne and his representatives sought a financial loan from the US Small Business Administration (SBA) in 2021.
Part of the conditions of the application by Young Money Touring Inc. included an assertion that they ran a drug-free workplace. They ended up receiving an $8.9million (£7million) loan.
The new report has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the SBA to investigate the loan, given Wayne’s high profile advocation of marijuana use. The SBA responded that the approval was not conditional on Wayne’s “personal actions” but about the presence of drug use in the relevant workplace, and covered only drug use between March 2020 to June 2022.
“The SBA’s process of monitoring and auditing of grant recipients is actively ongoing,” the government agency explained. “To date, about $40 million has been returned from SVOG grantees and additional files have been referred for ongoing criminal investigation or civil recovery. To date, none of the recoveries relate to the drug-free certification.”
Neither Lil Wayne nor Young Money Touring Inc. have responded to the allegations.
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Earlier this year, Wayne said he believed Drake is “hated on” by the hip-hop community because he is “light-skinned”
“That’s just American history,” he elaborated. “How I know is, because I’m not light-skinned. I hated on all [the] light-skinned dudes in school. So yeah, it’s American history, man.”
The rapper has also said in recent months that hearing André 3000 say he had nothing to rap about in his 40s was “so depressing”.
“I have everything to talk about,” the 41-year-old explained. “I thought that may be a downfall of me staying in it because at our age you may hear what’s going on and feel I’m so out of that. I ain’t about to drop nothing. So that’s why I say I don’t listen. I just go in my little hole, I love what I do, put it out, and hopefully, we swing for the fences, man.”