Young Child; Young Money Part 2

By the age of 11, Lil Wayne was hanging with the big boys. As a youngster, he started drugs. In his episode of VH1’s Behind The Music, Wayne speaks on his cocaine use as a child. "We didn't know what it was," Weezy said. "We were that young. We didn't know if it was dope, coke, crack." His thoughts after doing the drug was, "Man my momma is going to kill me!" Growing up in New Orleans to a single mother, 11-year-old Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Carter Jr., also started having sex, and smoking and selling marijuana. "I ended up getting high off my own supply," he said of his early drug dealing days. At the ripe age of 12 years old, Wayne almost took his own life after finding a gun in his mother's room and accidentally shooting himself in the chest. "I was in [her room] on my rap sh--," he said. "Got a gun ... music blasting, thinking I'm safe ... playing around. I heard [police knocking], of course, I couldn't scream or nothing. I [had] a big a-- bullet hole in my chest. I [couldn't] make no noise. I just slid to the door on my own blood." Wayne was rushed to a New Orleans hospital and the bullet, which was less than an inch from his heart, was extracted from his chest. Soon after the recovery from the chest wound, young Dwayne Michael Carter started his career as the youngest rapper in the game.