Lil Wayne's Jail Time Is An 'Eye-Opener,' Young Jeezy Says

Now that Lil Wayne has been sentenced to one year in prison following several delays, the reality is setting in for his fans and friends. No one in the hip-hop community wants to see Weezy leave, and rappers also realize they need to run tighter ships in Wayne's absence.

Young Jeezy said he'll not only miss Wayne's work ethic and music, but also his friend's rebellious attitude.



"Wayne, like I like to call myself, is a trap-aholic," Young Jeezy told MTV News last week in New York, hours before he brought Weezy onstage at Madison Square Garden as a surprise guest during Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 Tour. That performance — which also included Nicki Minaj and Drake — would be Wayne's last before he went to jail.

"He stays in the studio, he stays working," the Snowman added. "We'll definitely miss that. At the same time, we'll definitely miss what he brings to the game as far as him just being Wayne and doing what the f--- he wanna do. We definitely gonna miss that. But it's just an eye-opener to all of us. Instead of targeting the hustlers and the people trying to make it in the streets, now that the streets is dried up, now [the police] are targeting the entertainers and the athletes, what have you. Real talk, not trying to preach to the choir, we gotta be careful out here. What I mean to my culture is more than me proving a point."

Diddy echoed Jeezy's sentiment that police are keeping a very close eye on the hip-hop community.

"I think we gonna miss a certain energy that Wayne has," Diddy said. "The beauty about it is, he'll be back, and hopefully he'll come back a better person. Whenever we get in trouble, we're in the public spotlight. So hopefully there's a lot of kids out there who could learn from any mistakes that we may have put ourselves in, even if we're not guilty of the crime sometimes. We are human. People have to learn: 'Make sure you know where you're going, who you riding with, what the situation is.' We're targets. I'm just happy he doesn't have to do a lot of time and that he'll be out, and hopefully he'll use the time wisely and use it in a positive way."

"It's evident that nobody's safe. That's reality," Lloyd Banks added about rappers not being above the law, with Lil Wayne going to jail on the heels of T.I. and Gucci Mane. Banks himself has an assault case pending in Canada. "People make mistakes, have poor judgments sometimes, and things happen. Hopefully, all those artists can bounce back from it stronger and use that time [in jail] to be more creative. Come back home and get right back to where they was at. It's something that's always been around. We been talking about [rappers going to jail] since Tupac."