Lil Wayne "starting a trend"

How does Lil Wayne feel about all of his songs that get leaked and are subsequently bootlegged excessively? "I can't stop it," he says confidently. We've already described the Lil Wayne business model, and now the self-proclaimed "best rapper alive" is taken it even further. December 18 was the planned release date for his highly anticipated Tha Carter III. An album of the same name with the subhead The Leak will see release on that date, with the actual Carter III dropping next year on Valentine's Day with four additional tracks. If you are into Lil Wayne mixtapes, chances are you've heard all these songs, but Wayne will be re-working them to maintain his "perfectionist" status.

Album leaks are not going away, but that does not stop artists from lamenting the inevitable. Wayne on the otherhand embraces this reality, and now works it to his advantage. I commend him for sticking to his gameplan and releasing songs that may have already leaked. I think albums suffer when artists try and rush new songs to combat leaks (a la Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor).

Leaks can be a positive thing, says Weezy. "[The release is] gonna be called The Leak as well because I get leaked so much," he tells MTV. "My music got leaked this whole year. One thing I noticed, when another person's album gets leaked, it's a whole thing; they're distraught. When my song gets leaked, people call and say, 'It's the greatest song. Can I have it for this album?' Or, 'Can I put it on this soundtrack? Can we get the ringtone?' It's never, 'Damn, dude, your music leaked.' So what we feel, we're gonna give you what you want. We're gonna give you the leak. Every song that was leaked is coming out on December 18 — and we have four new songs. The song 'Gossip' is gonna be the first single from that album. I'mma shoot the video for that in about a week."