After reaching an eight-figure settlement with Birdman and Cash Money back in June, we received some major Lil Wayne news this week: his long-awaited album Tha Carter V is reportedly dropping on September 21. Before then, Billboard have published a new cover story on Weezy that delves into the legal drama and album delays that have plagued the last few years of his life.

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Speaking with Dan Rys, Wayne addresses his legal dispute — and settlement — with Baby, as well as their current relationship, while touching on Tha Carter V. “I don’t know what it’s setting me up for — some big comeback, or maybe some big fall back or whatever — but it’s setting me up for something, and I’m ready,” he says.

The article also contains a pretty astonishing bombshell: the self-inflicted gunshot wound Wayne suffered at age 12 was actually a suicide attempt after his mother forbade him from rapping. Apparently, he addresses this topic on Tha Carter V‘s outro track, which samples Sampha’s “Indecision” and was inspired by the recent suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade.

“He just told me one day that he was ready to address it now,” Mack Maine says. “Just being an adult, reaching a level of maturity and comfort where it’s like, ‘I want to talk about this because I know a lot of people out here might be going through that.’”

Check out more highlights below and read the full story here.

On his legal drama with Birdman and Cash Money:

“I’m a very passionate guy about anything I do,” he says now. “So once I find out that I’m being fucked over, I’m going to be passionate about that emotion toward how I feel about it.” But what Wayne really resented was the distraction from his art — not the money he claimed he was owed (“My mama,” he says, is the only one with “things in her mind that she wanna buy”) or even the conflict with one of his closest friends. “The difficult part of it,” says Wayne, “was finally having to pull the curtains back and see what the hell was out that window — having to actually care about other things than my music and my lyrics.”

Wayne also relies on his children. “My four jewels — when I FaceTime one of them, man, everything goes away,” he says. “I didn’t let it get to me too much,” he continues, addressing how he pushed through the legal drama. “Just the confidence in knowing that there’s always a tomorrow and I’m going to make sure that tomorrow is bright. Some people can’t go on [like] that, like, ‘OK, tomorrow will be better.’ They need it to be better right now. And thank God I didn’t, and I never did.”

On the outcome of his settlement with Cash Money:

On June 7, over three years later, Cash Money and Lil Wayne finally settled their lawsuits for an undisclosed sum. Each side retained their stakes in previously established Young Money deals, and Wayne was paid in full. Young Money now belongs solely to Wayne, and its distribution deal with Republic remains in place. Tha Carter V will be the first album in his career to not have the Cash Money logo on it. “There’s no hard feelings or animosity,” says Sweeney. “This is business, and we finally got our business straight.”

On his current relationship with Birdman:

Wayne and Birdman are back to talking every day, usually about the Red Sox. But Wayne is less trusting and focused on his album. “Not even just with him, but my relationships with a lot of people have become different, just because of how different I work now,” he says. “I’m submerged in everything about myself, trying to be better at who I am. It’s something where you have to cut some things off.”

Related: New Music: Lil’ Wayne “Quasimodo”