NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Lil Wayne’s efforts to keep up the beat behind bars have gotten him in trouble in jail, an official said Thursday.
The Grammy Award-winning rapper faces potential discipline after jail officers found a charger and headphones for a digital music player stashed in a potato chip bag in his cell Monday, city Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello said. Lil Wayne is serving a yearlong sentence after pleading guilty to a gun charge.
The items are considered contraband, as inmates can listen to music only on radios and headphones sold at the jail commissary. Lil Wayne’s lawyer, Stacey Richman, had no immediate comment Thursday.
Officers said the music player itself turned up in another inmate’s nearby cell. Both men were charged with infractions that aren’t crimes and will be subject to a jail disciplinary process, not a court. Punishments can include being segregated from other inmates.
Lil Wayne began serving his term in March in the city’s Rikers Island jail complex. He pleaded guilty in October to attempted criminal possession of a weapon, admitting he had a loaded semiautomatic gun on his bus in 2007.
The 27-year-old rapper hasn’t had any previous disciplinary problems in jail, where he works as an “inmate observation aide,” Morello said. The job entails engaging with other inmates deemed at risk of suicide.
Born Dwayne Carter, Lil Wayne had the best-selling album of 2008 with “Tha Carter III,” which won a best rap album Grammy.
As he faced incarceration with his career in high gear, he pledged to keep music on his mind while doing time.
“I’ll have an iPod, and I’ll make sure they keep sending me beats,” he told Rolling Stone for a February story. “I’ll be still rapping in there, have a gang of raps ready when I come home.”
With good behavior, he could be released as early as November.
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