‘Welcome 2 Collegrove' Reminds Us That Lil Wayne and 2Chainz Are #FriendshipGoals

Jeff Kravitz

“Let me tell you a story about these two guys that eventually became brothers,” 50 Cent says on the opening of Welcome 2 Collegrove, the second collaborative album between Southern-rap luminaries 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne. That succinct description is certainly apt, but it doesn’t even begin to capture the friendship that began through kismet at an Atlanta studio session 20 years ago. In the ensuing decades, Wayne emerged from the ranks of the Cash Money collective to become perhaps the most recognizable rapper in the world, and Chainz reeled off his own run of platinum and gold records, dominating the zeitgeist with singles like “I’m Different” and “Good Drank.”

Like 2016’s ColleGrove, Chainz and Wayne’s first release as a duo, Welcome 2 Collegrove is full of bombastic boasts and glitzy beats and soars on chosen-family-type chemistry from the MCs. With 50 Cent serving as narrator, Welcome 2 Collegrove also has a cinematic bent, making it feel like the kind of big budget event album this friendship deserves.

Beef has given us some of the best rap songs ever, and it’s helped catapult the genre into the mainstream, but it’s also perpetuated negative stereotypes around hip-hop culture and, in far too many cases, led to injury and loss of life. With that in mind, let us now celebrate hip-hop’s most wholesome relationship.

A transactional meeting blossomed into two decades of closeness.

In a joint appearance on The Tonight Show in October to promote Collegrove 2, Wayne and Chainz showcased their easy chemistry and shared a bit of their history that may not have been known to some mainstream fans. In a truly hilarious late-night TV moment, they revealed that the pair first met when Chainz showed up to Wayne’s studio session in Atlanta to sell him weed. “He was just a cool dude from Atlanta,” Wayne said sheepishly, followed by a pointed throat clearing from Chainz.

Wayne later served as best man at Chainz’s 2018 wedding to Kesha Ward, and a Vogue photo diary from the big day features one of the most heartwarming images of two rappers ever captured. In the behind-the-scenes shots, we see Wayne (famously around 5’5”) standing on a couch to help Chainz, a 6’5” former college basketball player, put on his tuxedo jacket. It’s an unbelievably sweet moment, made even more so by the simple caption. “My brother and my best man, Lil Wayne, helping me get ready for the wedding,” Chainz wrote.

Watching the pair hit the press circuit for Welcome 2 Collegrove is a delight, in part because they weren’t able to promote their first album in tandem. They have a million stories to share, from music video shoots to tour dates to studio sessions, and their comfort when it comes to expressing their closeness is a welcome sight within hip-hop’s macho culture.

Their friendship has led to some of the pair’s best music.

2 Chainz is a special talent, and one whose growth as an album artist throughout his 30s and 40s has been inspirational, but it’s not outlandish to say that he might never have breached the mainstream consciousness without Wayne. Initially part of the duo Playaz Circle, a much rawer 2 Chainz—who was still going by “Tity Boi” back then—scored his first national hit with the Wayne-assisted “Duffle Bag Boy.” The single, bolstered by Wayne’s earworm chorus, peaked at #15 on the Hot 100, and gave 2 Chainz the kind of career momentum that his then-label head Ludacris couldn’t manufacture for him.

Even beyond that unimpeachable Playaz Circle single, Chainz and Wayne have fueled each other to make a staggering amount of excellent music. “Dedication,” the opener from the first Collegrove, is a truly touching song about friendship, delivered with deep earnestness by 2 Chainz. “If it wasn’t for Wayne, it wouldn’t be / A lot of dudes in the game, including me,” he raps on the opening verse, before the Atlanta MC takes us on a vivid trip down memory lane. In a few short verses, we’re transported back to the 2000s, to their friendship before Lil Wayne was the chart-topping franchise player he became with the Carter series. Chainz recalls Wayne introducing him to Drake for the first time, and even makes trying codeine together sound quaint and charming.

The track is uncommonly candid, with Chainz recalling advice Wayne gave him during his stalled early career as a protege of Ludacris (“I told you that I was rappin’, told you I wasn’t writing/You said Luda was foolish because he wasn’t excited”) and recalls the “Duffle Bag Boy” video shoot (“You was holding a sty-ry, I had more gold than a pirate”). Because of his fun-loving personality and his string of memeable hits in the early 2010s, 2 Chainz often doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a savvy and evocative rap writer. “Dedication” is quietly one of the great songs of his career, and it would have never existed if not for his friendship with Wayne.

In a 2016 interview with Genius, Wayne said that he didn’t know Chainz was working on the song, and that hearing it for the first time moved him deeply. “I remember the song came on and the driver and my security was in the front seat, I had to make them get out of the car after I started listening to it. I already tattooed some [tears] on my face, but that song made a few more drop,” Wayne said.

When the first Collegrove came out, Wayne was mired in label issues, which prevented the album from being jointly credited, but 2 Chainz still pushed to have the LP released as a solo project of his own on Def Jam. The cover art is an acknowledgment of Wayne’s unofficial involvement; it depicts 2 Chainz’s face, photoshopped to feature Weezy’s signature tattoos.

2 Chainz and Lil Wayne are models for aging gracefully in rap.

With hip-hop reaching its highly-publicized 50th anniversary this year, there has been more discourse than ever around how artists remain creative and relevant as they reach middle age. While the early years of their careers could not have been more different–Wayne was a bona fide star as a teenager, while Chainz didn’t make waves as a solo artist until well into his 30s–the pair now find themselves at similar stages of their careers.

Wayne remains an above-the-marquee star, a position Chainz has transitioned out of following underwhelming recent sales and a lack of chart hits, but they’re highly respected Southern-rap elder statesmen balancing the perpetual youthfulness that mainstream rap calls for with well-honed wisdom and mature perspectives. (That’s not a knock on the quality of 2 Chainz’s recent work—2022’s Dope Don't Sell Itself has some very strong moments—but a nod to Wayne’s virtually unprecedented longevity.)

Look at their 2020 collaboration “Money Maker.” Like the Ludacris track of the same name, the song is inspired by butts, but it operates with an uncommonly slow groove, built around a nostalgic sample of Guy’s “Piece of My Love.” It’s also an affectionate tribute to HBCUs, something that’s more present in the video, but still evident in the recorded version.

And unsurprisingly, Welcome 2 Collegrove is a blast. Single “Long Story Short” assembles a southern rap all-star team behind the boards, with Mannie Fresh, Juicy J, and Big K.R.I.T. handling an instrumental that feels like a spiritual successor to UGK’s “Int’l Players Anthem.” The triumphant horns of “Millions From Now” set the stage for some all-world boasting, while “Shame,” produced by Mobb Deep’s Havoc, sees the tandem channel Wu-Tang Clan and prove themselves as students of the game. “Crazy Thick” not only incorporates a snippet of Wayne’s oft-quoted deposition, but sees both MCs in gleefully horny form atop a bassy Miami beat. Because of the aforementioned label trouble, the first ColleGrove featured four solo 2 Chainz songs, many of which are legitimately excellent (“Dedication,” “100 Joints”), but having a full record to trade verses allows them both to breathe and experiment.

On “Shame,” the duo compare themselves to Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, but ironically, the best encapsulation of their friendship comes from guest MC Benny the Butcher likening his relationship to the scale he uses to weigh drugs to “Oprah and Gayle.” All respect to Benny, but that description is better used for Chainz and Wayne, an iconic pair whose closeness transcends the usual hollowness of highly-publicized celebrity pals, and has clearly made them both better as rappers and as people.

Originally Appeared on GQ