Lil Wayne Shows Sensitive Side In "How to Love"

He's known for his deep messages and thought out lyrics, but Lil Wayne has outdone himself with his latest video, "How to Love" on MTV Jams as "Jam of the Week." The R&B ballad tune is third single from rapper's upcoming ninth album "Tha Carter IV." The song features a slow stripped down based largely around the sounds of an acoustic guitar and drums. It chronicles the life of a troubled woman who never learned how to love, and was influenced by Wayne's love interest, Dhea. The five-minute tragic clip tugs at heartstrings with depictions of abuse, molestation and prostitution.
It's hard to find true love when you're a rich and famous rapper, but in his new stripped down acoustic song, Wayne teaches the lesson of "How to Love" — proving that he's got a lot of heart himself. He pinpoints that this broken girl's insecurities stem from bad bruises in the past, but stresses that he finds her beautiful because she's one of a kind in his eyes. We haven't heard Young Wayne like this before, but if this new side of him is a result of his new lady friend, we welcome it with open arms. Not that we want the rap master to go all singer-songwriter on us, but this gem shows that even the hardest of exteriors can have a gooey center.
Wayne said his new single gives him "goose bumps" and that he has "never had a single like it." The song's producer, Detail, told MTV that the new video would shock viewers. "Wayne wrote every scene: He told me scene by scene by scene," the producer said. The lyrics of Wayne's ballad "How to Love" are probably best described as romantically tragic, but after Wayne premiered the video online Wednesday, the song took on a more dire meaning. The Chris Robinson-directed clip tells the story of an abused mother, who unintentionally leads her daughter to relive her own vicious cycle.
The video clearly shows that this woman had a troubling upbringing with parents who fought and a dad who was in jail. She grows up into a stripper, whose activities lead her to a sad fate. But, the video also explores what would have happened if her life had gone in a very different direction. Wayne is almost in the background of his own video, singing all his lyrics from one scene in a tunnel. The cautionary clip is heavy in its message and not necessarily easy to watch. It wasn't easy to film, either; "That was a harsh scene; it was difficult for us to shoot," the director said. "It was necessary, because these are the things that happen in real life. And you can see the trajectory of where that took her."