Mirror

Album: Tha Carter IV Deluxe Edition (2011)
Charted: 17 16
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Songfacts®:

  • This track from the deluxe version of Lil Wayne's ninth studio album, Tha Carter IV, finds the New Orleans native reflecting on his troubled past and working on becoming a better man as inspired by the late Michael Jackson. "And no message could have been any clearer / So I'm starting with the man in the mirror… MJ taught me that," he rhymes.
  • The song features vocals from Bruno Mars whilst the beat was supplied by up-and-coming producer Ramon "REO" Owen. Having been passed up by Kanye West, Nas and Drake the beat finally landed up on the deluxe version of Tha Carter IV three years after Owen crafted it. "Kanye heard it, Drake heard it, and it already had the Bruno [hook]," he told MTV News. "Basically, Nas had it for a while, and it just ended up in the hands of Wayne and he loved it."
  • Owen said of Wayne's performance to MTV News: "I had to listen to it a few times because I've just been hearing my beat for so many years, and I was like, 'Yo, this guy got off on that s--t.'"
  • Ramon Owen claimed that Wayne was slow in sending him royalties from the sale of the song. He was forced to slap the rapper with a lawsuit in October 2014 stating that despite Young Money sending him a statement showing him that he's due $91,000 for his services, he had received "zero" funds for his work.

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