Da Drought

Da Drought is the first edition of the Da Drought series. In a 2004 interview with IGN, Wayne explained the mixtape is the scrapped version of Tha Carter:

IGN Music: What’s up with The Carter? You were initially supposed to drop the album last year. Then it got pushed back to the beginning of 2004. And finally it’s set to drop this summer. Gimme the scoop.

Lil' Wayne: What happened was there was a change in the music. And some of the artists that were on the album are no longer a part of us, so we didn’t want to put anything out with them on it because we didn’t want any legal problems in the future. So instead of puttin' it out and rushing things, I was patient enough to say ‘Let’s just start all over and I’ll wait until a later date.’

IGNM: Now did you scrap all of those early sessions?

Lil' Wayne: What I did is that I put it out as a mixtape and gave it away for free.

IGNM: Nice. So there is a version of the original floating around out there then for the hardcore fans to get a hold of.

Lil' Wayne: Yeah. It’s called Da Drought.