“I feel like Dedication 2 is like the perfect mixtape or the perfect Gangsta Grillz mixtape. I just feel like the tape has every element of a perfect mixtape in the sense of where Wayne was with his composure to where I was for putting the tapes together to the art of it to the production of it to the style; it just encompasses everything.
I was on tour with T.I. at the time. We was on a tour bus and T.I.P. was on the phone with Wayne. And I was like, ‘Yo, you talking to Wayne? Let me holla at him.’ He passed him the phone and I was like, ‘Yo, what’s up, man. We due.’ He was like, ‘For sure.” At the time, he was working, he had his Sqad Up tapes. And I used to take records off the Sqad Up tapes and put them on Gangsta Grillz, the earlier ones. And he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s get busy.’ So, I remember after I came off tour, I met Tez [Cortez Bryant, Lil Wayne’s manager at the time] and Wayne, they were at Stankonia [Recording Studios]. I had just brought a bunch of beats over there and we were busting it out and working.
I came up with the concept Dedication, the name. I did the first Dedication right after Trap Or Die. And I remember thinking to myself like, Yo, how am I ever going to top Trap Or Die? It’s impossible. And then I came out with Dedication. So, by the time we did the second one, it was after [Hurricane] Katrina, and Dedication took on a whole other meaning in a sense from watching what happened to Katrina and even the ‘Georgia Bush’ record from his perspective. Even with that tape, I had like a hidden record on there with him spitting on ‘Ambitionz Az A Ridah,’ which is like a secret song. I just was on some shyt. And with the artwork for the second one, it’s a masterpiece.
[DJ] Khaled was shooting his video for ‘Holla At Me’ in Miami, so he flew everybody in for the video at the time. So, I was in Miami for Khaled’s video, and Wayne was finishing up Dedication at The Hit Factory. And I went over there to get the music from him and I had took this beat I was like, ‘Yo, see if you fukk with this.’ And it was the ‘Cannon’ beat. And at the time it was a Busta Rhymes song. Busta Rhymes originally had the beat. I took Wayne the instrumental and the next day he sent me back his verse for that, which is like, a fukking timeless classic. And that was literally probably one the last records that he recorded for D2. [My favorites on there are] ‘Cannon,’ ‘Georgia Bush’, ‘Dedication 2.’”
