Lil Wayne's Prison Job Revealed: Watching Over Suicidal Inmates

Lil Wayne makes his living as the bestselling rapper on the planet, but while serving his year-long jail sentence at New York's Rikers Island, Weezy has entirely new job: keeping watch over suicidal inmates. Antonia "Toya" Johnson, the mother of one of Wayne's children, tells Us Weekly, "Wayne has a job. They got him on suicide watch for other prisoners. He watches the crazy prisoners and makes sure they don't kill themselves." Finding himself in a 9-to-5, albeit in prison, Weezy shares a similar complaint with much of the working population. "He likes the job even though they don't pay him much," Toya says of the Young Money multimillionaire.

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Toya adds that Lil Wayne is adjusting well to prison life, and getting along with his fellow inmates. He's even managed to avoid getting a haircut. As Rolling Stone previously reported, in addition to suicide prevention tasks, the rapper is also a fledgling jailhouse blogger, writing responses to fan mail on his Weezy Thanx You blog from Rikers, where Lil Wayne is serving a year behind bars — or less with good behavior — after pleading guilty to weapons charges stemming from a 2007 arrest in New York City.

As for Toya's reality-TV costar Tameka "Tiny" Cottle's fiancee T.I., who just wrapped his own gun-related sentence at a halfway house outside Atlanta, the King rapper's role during his prison term was serving as a motivational speaker to his fellow inmates — a job he performed before heading off to jail, too.

A day in the life of T.I.: exclusive photos.

Related Stories:

• Lil Wayne Launches Prison Website "Weezy Thanx You"
• Lil Wayne Sentenced to a Year in Jail; Could Be Out in Eight Months

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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