“Mona Lisa” is a story of a deceptive woman named Liz who sets her “boyfriend” up for a robbery.

Liz is compared to the famous portrait painting due to the dubiety of Mona Lisa’s smile. The smile can be interpreted as disingenuous, which therefore makes Liz disingenuous as well, unbeknownst to the boyfriend. Wayne and Kendrick play the two sides of the story; Wayne is the robber and Kendrick is the boyfriend.

The song was originally recorded in 2014, as it appeared on the tentative Carter V tracklist that Wayne previewed in October 2014. The first snippet of the song was brought to light in 2017 when PharmaBro Martin Shkreli played a part of the song live on Periscope, after acquiring the album from a man who bought Lil Wayne’s Bugatti, where a copy of the album was left. The version that Shkreli played live was later leaked in September 2019, along with the rest of the original Carter V album.

The song also notably contains references to Wayne’s relationship with Karrine Steffans, who is also known as Superhead. In an interview with BET Digital shortly after the song’s release, Steffans confirmed this, noting the song’s lyrics bared “similarities” to her relationship with Wayne.