Lil Wayne Is First Since Tupac to Reach No. 1 From Prison

In 1995, Tupac was incarcerated when Me Against the World rose to the top of the US album charts. For fifteen years, no rapper repeated that. In the fall of 2010, Lil Wayne succeeded: His album I Am Not A Human Being, released on September 27, stood at No. 1 while he was serving an eight-month sentence on Rikers Island for a loaded gun in his tour bus. According to AllHipHop, it had sold more than 323,000 copies by then. Billboard drew the comparison with Tupac.

Presence Despite Incarceration

Bryan “Baby” Williams of Cash Money Records explained that the label and management had planned from the start for Wayne to remain present, as if he had never been gone. Wayne checked in via radio stations and his own fan site, and released a remix with Drake and Jay-Z from prison.

Suge Knight, who had brought Tupac to Death Row, also praised how Wayne maintained contact with his fans. In the nineties, the world came to a standstill for artists in prison, he said. How Tupac experienced the months in custody is described on the page Tupac’s Incarceration 1995.