Lil Wayne is amazed by Nicki Minaj, but thinks she can do better

As the boss of Young Money, Lil Wayne is always looking out for his fellow rappers. Nicki Minaj is YM’s first lady, and as her mentor, Lil Wayne is one of her biggest fans.

In a recent interview with MTV, Lil Wayne praised Nicki for all she does, but still pushes her to do more. He’s loving her new single, “Lookin’ Ass” and is amazed by all she’s doing. “That’s what Nicki does-she never fails to amaze me with anything she do,” Weezy said. “Honestly, I’m a tough judge and I’m the boss, so I kinda be like, ‘That’s nice, but you can do better.’”

In her new single “Lookin’ Ass,” Nicki spits a war of words about rap’s battle of the sexes. She’s come into the rap game as a woman with an anthem to champion for the first time in a while, and Weezy loves the reaction the song is getting in the clubs. “It’s either that song that’s making ‘em feel good like that or that New Beyoncé,” he says.

He couldn’t be more proud of Nicki and how she’s made a name for herself as woman in the rap scene, but he’s always going to push her to do more. She’s been working on her third solo album, which will be out later this year, and as great as he knows she is, he thinks she can do better. “But that’s what I tell myself every day, too,” he adds.

Weezy is also working on his next album, which will be his final solo album. He’s decided to make the final Carter album, stopping at number five. He’s working as hard as he can on the album, and believes it’d be impossible for him to ever work this hard again on anything else.

During a SXSW edition of Elliot Wilson’s CRWN interview series, Weezy admits that he’s stopped singing his own praises. “Because I have awesome artists, simple and plain. I’m not trying to outshine them at all,” he said.

He didn’t sign Nicki just because she was a female rapper. She was herself, and that’s what he fell in love with. He met her before all the fame and before all the glitz and glamour. When he heard he rap for the first few times, “it wasn’t about ‘she’s rapping better than any female rapper;’ she’s rapping better than the rappers. Period.”

He admits how he now has artists like Nicki and Drake who are awesome, and he wants them to be better than he is. “I want everybody to feel like they’re the best at what they do,” he admits. “It’s just like I said, it ain’t about that now, it’s about them. It’s about us.” As YMCMB, they’ve made quite the name for themselves and he’s proud of the rappers he’s found.