Katie Couric Grills Lil' Wayne

CBS had a Grammy Special on Wednesday night as a precursor to the big awards show coming this Sunday night. On the special, CBS Evening News anchor, Katie Couric, interviewed several Grammy hopefuls including Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and Lil' Wayne. Couric also participated in various activities with the artists, including bowling against Lil' Wayne and golfing with Justin Timberlake. Justin Timberlake discussed his various endeavors including acting in Independent Films (Alpha Dog, Black Snake Moan), his comedy sketches on SNL (the famous box skit), and most recently his foray into fashion. JT's fashion line, William Rast has ads that feature Timberlake playing a renegade character on the run which he fully created. Timberlake also helped coach Couric to play some golf, and it was revealed that Justin's been named the #15 musician golfer. Lil' Wayne has been nominated for the most Grammys of any artist at the awards show and discussed what it is to be "gangsta". Basically he doesn't take anything from anyone and plans to die before he ever does. Wanye discussed his start writing rap songs while growing up in New Orleans as well as the song he'll be doing at the Grammys which is dedicated to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Lil' Wayne also revealed his real name is Dwayne, but he dropped the D due to the fact he's a "Junior". His father wasn't part of his life, so Wayne made the choice to not associate his name in that way. Wayne also revealed his numerous tattoos, and discussed his drug habits. Wayne talked of being previously addicted to prescription cough syrup, and his love of weed. The rapper said he'll stand up for marijuana any day, and currently uses it for medicinal purposes. Apparently he suffers from migraine headaches and the marijuana eases the pain. Lil' Wayne is scheduled to perform this Sunday for the annual Grammy Awards. The LA Times has an interesting article discussing the Grammy Awards slow recognition of the hip hop genre. Read "Grammy's Slow Hip-hop embrace"