LOS ANGELES, March 27 — The notebook is part of a rare memorabilia collection from the label Cash Money Records.

Lil Wayne’s old rhyme book has just hit the market. Dating from 1999, it features Wayne’s handwritten contributions to We on Fire and I Feel It. The then-17-year-old-rapper wrote these tracks while he was a member of hip-hop group Hot Boys.

The notebook can be purchased for close to US$250,000 (RM1.02 million) through memorabilia seller Moments in Time, reports TMZ.

The unnamed owner explained that he uncovered the item after the dealership he worked for tasked him to clean a car that once belonged to Cash Money Records. He then stored the item in a box in his garage, which was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Although the book has been damaged by water, it remains a rare piece of memorabilia from a rapper who famously stopped writing his rhymes in 2003. While recording 10,000 Bars, Lil Wayne emptied out his entire notebook of lyrics over a dozen beats. Since that episode, he prefers to freestyle the lyrics to his songs as he records them in the studio.

"It’s always a different trigger meaning sometimes it might be somebody else’s song or maybe a feature, they already had that subject so I just stick to the subject. If it’s mine, if the music is what it is. I go off the music,” he told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show last October. — AFP-Relaxnews