"How to Love" | ||||
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Single by Lil Wayne | ||||
from the album Tha Carter IV | ||||
Released | May 26, 2011 | |||
Format | CD single, digital download | |||
Recorded | 2011 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 4:00 | |||
Label | Young Money, Cash Money, Universal Republic | |||
Writer(s) | Dwayne Carter, Jr., Noel Fisher, LaMar Seymour, LaNelle Seymour, Jermaine Preyan, Marcus Boyd, Bryan Williams | |||
Producer(s) | Drum Up, Noel "Detail" Fisher | |||
Lil Wayne singles chronology | ||||
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"How to Love" is a song by American rapper and occasional singer Lil Wayne, released as the third single from his ninth studio album, Tha Carter IV. The song features production from LaMar and LaNelle Seymour p/k/a Drum Up with Noel "Detail" Fisher and was released as a digital download on June 13, 2011. It was later released to urban contemporary radio stations on June 24, 2011. The song also makes it his first entry on hot adult contemporary stations, as CJFM-FM Montreal began playing it a month later after the single's release. It peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it his third highest peak on the chart as the primary artist. Lil Wayne performed the song at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
The song features a slow, "stripped down" production from LaMar and LaNelle Seymour a/k/a Drum Up with Noel "Detail" Fisher based largely around the sounds of an acoustic guitar and drums. Wayne has said the song is about women who "don't know how to love because there's deep reasons for them not knowing how to love...And what I mean by deep reasons is deep and dark reasons." Furthermore, Wayne stated regarding the track that "A lot of people don't open up that can and I figured that I can open up that can of worms and see what happens."
Lil Wayne also revealed that for the acoustic-driven How To Love, he pulled inspiration from late rapper Tupac Shakur’s inspirational 1993 hit, Keep Ya Head Up and said “That song is just sweeping the world. It’s touching every woman, that’s what it was for,” he said. “It was like Tupac had ‘Keep Ya Head Up’ and it was a message to women and little girls across the world just to keep your head up even though things are hard.
The music video premiered August 23, 2011 on MTV Jams as "Jam of the Week." In an interview with MTV News, Detail revealed that the video had been written entirely by Wayne himself, and felt that the video would "have a big, big effect, and it's going to shock you because [of] the perspective you might look at it as". He also felt that the video "crosses rap's boundaries" with the song's unusual style, and also stated that "after he showed me the video concept, it's like, 'Yo, dude, we're gonna be at the Country Awards with this record,'... we gonna be sitting next to Taylor Swift." It is also directed by Chris Robinson and stars Chanta Patton.Darris Love and Tristan Wilds make a cameo appearance. On August 24 the music video for "How To Love" was added on Lil Wayne's VEVO channel.