That’s the last we’ll see of Lil Wayne for a while. He’ll be spending the next year having the time of his life.

Admittedly he’ll be in jail. But if Lil Wayne has any sense, he’ll use this year as a chance to refocus his priorities – he could maybe take up painting, or study meditation, or learn to love being stabbed in the thigh by an institutionalised lunatic whenever the warden isn’t around. Stuff like that.

But that’s all up to Lil Wayne. After two false starts, he was finally sentenced to a year in jail for attempted possession of a weapon yesterday. That said, he could be out in eight months for good behaviour. Fingers crossed that happens, because we really don’t want to wait another year for the Lil Wayne Christmas album.

Oh Lil Wayne, the things you’re going to miss. The World Cup. The inaugural Youth Olympic Games. Shanghai’s World Expo. The Russian launch of the world’s first Peruvian nanosatellite. If only Lil Wayne had thought of all these monumental fixtures before he allowed a gun onto his tour bus in 2007, maybe he wouldn’t have been hauled off to jail for a year yesterday. Remember the Peruvian nanosatellites, that’s our motto. Always remember the Peruvian nanosatellites.

That said, Lil Wayne has been enjoying a lot more freedom than he must have expected – yesterday marked his third attempt at sentencing. First it was postponed because Lil Wayne had a bit of toothache. Then it was postponed because the courthouse caught fire unexpectedly. But yesterday there was nowhere to hide, and Lil Wayne found himself being sent to the big house. BBC News reports:

Rapper Lil Wayne has been sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to gun possession. His lawyer said the rapper expected to be held in protective custody, separated from other prisoners, at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex. The singer delivered a brief bow as he was led from Manhattan criminal court. Lil Wayne… has vowed to keep writing while behind bars.

That’s encouraging. If anything’s going to get Lil Wayne through the next year of his life, it’s dedication to his craft. He has the potential to come out of this jail sentence with a career-defining album about his experiences in prison. Or just lots and lots of half-finished lyric sheets that were abandoned because he couldn’t think of anything that rhymed with ‘Please stop bumming me’.

Either way, it’ll have to be better than his last album, on the basis that everything that has ever existed or will ever exist is better than his last album.

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