Before the Fame: Drake Once Wasn’t Allowed on Lil Wayne’s Tour Bus

For a rapper who later helped turn Young Money into a chart-dominating machine, Drake did not exactly start out as the cool kid in the crew.

Long before the sold-out tours and record-breaking albums, the rapper was apparently the odd one out during Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III era. In fact, according to the director behind Wayne’s famous documentary, Drake was not even allowed on the tour bus.

Adam Bhala Lough, who directed The Carter documentary, recently spoke with music journalist Andre Gee for his Substack newsletter. While discussing the making of the film and a sequel that recently leaked online, Lough shared a funny story about Young Money’s early days.

At the time, Lough was often around Wayne and his inner circle while filming. That meant spending time with people who would later become some of the biggest names in rap.

“The majority of the time when I wasn’t shooting with Wayne, but when I was on set, Wayne would disappear and I was just hanging out with Tez [Bryant, Wayne’s then-manager], Mack Maine and Nicki Minaj,” he said. “At one point, I spent some time with her before Wayne did The Jimmy Kimmel Show, when nobody knew who she was, and they wouldn’t even let Drake on the bus. He was, like, such a dork that they wouldn’t even let him on the bus.”

Back then, Drake had not yet become the superstar people know today.

Things changed quickly once Drake’s music started taking off.

Lough explained that the atmosphere around Young Money at the time could also feel intimidating, especially with serious street figures around. That may have made it harder for someone like Drake to fit in early on.

He added: “When he started selling millions and millions of records, it was a different story entirely. But he was definitely not allowed on the bus and wouldn’t hang out with any of [them] because there were real Blood gang members around all the time. And I’m sure he was intimidated by them, too. I was, even though they were super cool to me. These are serious, Blood gang members with guns on them. Like, some s--- could go down.”

Eventually, of course, Drake became one of Young Money’s biggest success stories and helped push the label to massive heights.

Lough also shared a surprising behind-the-scenes detail about The Carter documentary. At one point, the film almost had backing from two very controversial figures.

“Quincy Jones III contacted me. He had seen one of my previous films, and he was like, ‘I really want to work with you. I have this company. We have a deal with an offshoot of Miramax.’ You’re not going to believe this, but it was a company owned by Harvey Weinstein and Steve Bannon,” he said.

“A lot of people don’t remember, but Steve Bannon actually came from Hollywood; he was a movie producer. So the original financiers of The Carter were going to be Harvey Weinstein and Steve Bannon, which would have been amazing if it had actually happened, but they shut down their company during production of the film.”

Fans recently got a glimpse of even more footage from Wayne’s early years. Lough shared a rough cut of the documentary’s sequel on YouTube after hackers leaked the material. The footage was recorded years earlier during the Tha Carter and Tha Carter II eras.

The nearly two-hour video includes scenes of Lil Wayne playing unreleased music, working in the studio with a young 2 Chainz, who was then known as Tity Boi, and Curren$y, and talking about his issues with Cash Money Records.

For fans, it offers a rare look at a moment when hip-hop history was still being written and when one future superstar named Drake was still trying to find his place in the Young Money crew.