Lil' Wayne
Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images

Lil Wayne and his now-infamous tour bus had an uneventful stay in his hometown of New Orleans last week. Well, uneventful for Wayne. Before stopping to pose for a magazine photo shoot, he showed MTV News his recent Billboard cover, previewed tracks from Tha Carter III (which is now slated for April release) and talked about his time on the road, among other topics.

Unfortunately for Weezy F. Baby, his current mini-tour (an official tour is expected later this year) has had to include a few stops in court, where he's up on a series of serious charges. The most severe allegations against the Cash Money Millionaire come from Yuma, Arizona, where he was recently indicted on possession of a narcotic drug for sale, possession of dangerous drugs, misconduct involving weapons and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Professionally, Wayne has suffered a handful of losses in the aftermath of his arrests. A few artists have withdrawn requests for the guest-appearance specialist. Some sponsorship and endorsement deals have also collapsed.

But have his legal entanglements had any effect on Weezy's own songwriting?

"None on my music," he answered. "Me, personally, I get looked at a little differently by some of my fans and some people, period. I can't do nothing about that. I can try. ... That's what it get looks at as, you're just trying. So I don't try. I just be me. It is what it is. Take it or leave it. But as far as my music, it's done nothing to my music. Nothing could stop that. I'd have to be brain-dead to stop that. Everybody has incidents, everybody's human. I made a mistake. I did make a mistake - a big mistake. I made a mistake with that, but things get better. I'll get better."

When Weezy says "mistake," he isn't making an admission of guilt. On the contrary, he has formally maintained his innocence pertaining to the assortment of charges in Atlanta, New York, and Yuma. Wayne does say he was negligent in not policing his own bus. Still, he is miffed by the peers, friends and family who come up to him with words of advice and tell him to slow it down.

"To this day, a lot of rappers the game be coming up to me, like, 'Yo, man, you need to be ... You gotta be ... .' Don't tell me," he fumed. "You don't know what happened. You don't know what's going down. I had, like, 15 people on the bus. Who's to say what's what? But everybody puts on that black gown and becomes judges, so I'm always guilty.

"If [the police] would have stopped [the bus] that night, and I had everything under control, it wouldn't have been nothing," he continued. "I was irresponsible at that time. F--- up on my part. No ifs, ands, buts about it. I don't blame nobody but myself. I can't blame nobody for not taking my charge. ... This is my bus."

Wayne's frustration has boiled over to the stage and subsequently to the Internet, when footage from a late January concert in Richmond, Virginia, was uploaded to the masses.

At that show, he threw his jacket at friend/manager/DJ Cortez Bryant and vented to the crowd.

"I just flew in not even 10 minutes ago," he said to the fans. "I just had to deal with a whole lot of bullsh-- today. I want you to know that none of y'all up in this building have nothing to do with the attitude that I have right now. I'm not the most happiest man right now. When your friends turn their back on you and say one thing, and tell you they're gonna be there for you, and then when you get to that point ... ."

Wayne told MTV what he was going through at the time. "That right there, that's how the emotion and passion and adrenaline was running through me," he said. "I felt [like it was] me against the world that day. I just got out of jail that day. I'm getting calls all that day from everybody - my parents, my family, friends, people who don't know me, just judging me. ... Don't tell what I need to do. Look where I'm at. Look where you at. Look at your life.

"Let me die how I'm gonna die," he added with passion. "Let me live how I'mma live. You got something against it, then turn away. That's how I felt then; that's how I feel now. I ain't having nothing else. I love what I do, and I'm me. ... [God] loves me. I got a 9-year-old that loves the f--- outta me. That's all that matters. ... Every time I think about it, it pisses me off. They kill me with judging me."

Regardless of what Wayne thinks about his public or private perception, he will still have to face a real judge and jury soon.

"Deal with it when it comes, man," he said of his outlook. "[I] get on my knees every night and pray. [God's] gonna be with me everywhere I go. Ain't nothing new to a G."