Birdman, the Big Tymers, Juvenile, Manny Fresh, BG, Turk, and most famously Lil Wayne—all names that jump out when New Orleans’ Cash Money Records is mentioned. Birdman (formerly “Baby”) and his brother Slim created a huge movement in the ’90s with Cash Money and, in terms of rap music, put New Orleans on the map.
Founded by Jean Baptiste Le Mayne de Bienville in 1718 as La Nouvelle-Orleans and known worldwide for its French Quarter, New Orleans is a beautiful city with a rich history and a wide mix of cultures all residing and colliding in one place. As the birthplace of jazz, the city attracts millions of tourists each year for the Mardi Gras celebration and never-ending party. But New Orleans also has one of the most poverty-stricken ghettos in America.
The Magnolia projects, one of the largest and poorest housing projects in New Orleans, was built in 1941. In 1955, the complex expanded and incorporated an additional six city blocks. From 1952 to 1978 under manager Cleveland Joseph Peete, the housing project was officially renamed the C. J. Peete Housing Development—but to this day it is still known as the Magnolia projects. As with other projects, conditions deteriorated during the ’80s and ’90s as the crack cocaine epidemic stormed the city and violent crime skyrocketed.
Throughout the early to mid-90s, New Orleans had so many killings that some called the city the murder capital of the United States. The Magnolia projects were also where the Williams brothers, Ronald and Bryan, repped the street to the fullest. Coming up in the hood wasn’t pretty, but they made a life for themselves and their families, along with countless others, with their music label Cash Money Records.
Ronald, aka “Slim,” was born May 23, 1964, and Bryan was born February 15, 1969. Their parents were Gladys Brooks and Johnnie Williams, an ex-military man and owner of multiple businesses including a bar and a laundromat in New Orleans. Johnnie’s bar, “Gladys,” became a popular hangout for hustlers, drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and businessmen. The family lived in a small apartment above the bar.
A month after Bryan’s birth he didn’t have a first name and was simply referred to as “Baby.” The nickname stuck with him for life until he became known nationally as the hip-hop artist Birdman. In 1975, Gladys died from an illness, and Baby and his siblings spent two years living with their uncle in Prince George, British Columbia, followed by two years in foster care upon their return to New Orleans. After their father found out they were in foster care, he fought a long legal battle and got full custody of his children. The family moved into the Magnolia projects. Living quarters were cramped, which led to territorial disputes among the siblings, but Baby developed a close friendship with his stepbrother Eldrick Wise.
Wise mentored Baby on street survival and moving as a hustler. The lure of the streets was too strong for the youngster. He remembered seeing the finely dressed and jeweled hustlers who frequented his family’s bar. He saw that Magnolia was poor and people didn’t have much—or nothing at all—and he wanted more. Baby adapted to his environment and hustling became second nature. “We was thugging. That’s all we knew. That’s how we come up,” Baby said in an interview on the Big Facts podcast. “The streets became my life. I chose that shit.”
With drug dealing came big money, which led to hood credibility and notoriety. It got him fresh clothes and a better ride. “I wanted that,” said Terrance “Gangsta” Williams, a half brother of Baby and Slim, in an interview with VladTV. “As a youngster you see your siblings getting money, dressing fly, people respecting them, the girls calling all the time. I want that.”
Baby and Eldrick started committing robberies and selling heroin at a young age before they got arrested at sixteen. At eighteen, they were arrested again for drug possession and sentenced to three years at the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. After he served eighteen months of the sentence and was released, Eldrick got murdered. He would be the first of the Williams siblings who fell victim to the street.
Slim was always the quiet, laid-back one, but the influence of his father, Johnnie Williams, was strong; he had a mind for business and thought constantly about how he could make money. To go with Slim’s hungry mind for business, his brother Baby had keen hustling instincts. At a young age they put in work in the pursuit of independence. This attitude had been driven into them by their father—work hard, get your shit straight, and then you can play. “I was born with the mind of a hustler. My Pa was one. Ain’t nobody taught me nothing. I ain’t had no role model in this game. I was my own role model,” said Baby Williams.
As hip-hop exploded across the United States in the ’80s, different regions adopted certain elements and forms depending on the local culture—Miami had the big bass, the East Coast had breakbeats and a hard edge, the West Coast had a laid-back, funk-oriented sound. Meanwhile, in the Deep South in areas like New Orleans, a sound and style called “bounce music” captured the attention of locals of that generation. Artists like Kevin “MC T. Tucker” Ventry, DJ Jubilee, DJ Jim, Partners-N-Crime, Hot Boy Ronald, Juvenile, U.N.L.V., and Magnolia Short were among the first to make hip-hop with a unique New Orleans flavor.
Bounce music is a call-and-response party style of hip-hop that involves dance callouts that are often sexual. Another name for this style of music was “P-Poppin” or “Pussy Poppin” music. A big part of bounce is shouting out or acknowledging the geographical areas, neighborhoods, and housing projects in the New Orleans area.
“Bounce is really what we did anyway. We just took it and put it in another little form,” said Slim in a keynote interview at Sync Up New Orleans. “Bounce is up-tempo records. People like to dance to it. . . . And we do a lot of up-tempo records. Our style of artists that rap, they have a swing to it. What I call a ‘swing.’” They sing and they rap. That’s bounce music. We try to incorporate that all together to make great records.”
At first it was more of a battle-of-the-hoods type of music that represented who was more thorough in dance, style, and fashion. P. Poppin was huge in New Orleans. Baby was already known in the city for his hustling abilities in the Magnolia projects as well as his past robbery sprees with his stepbrother Eldrick Wise, who had a reputation in the city before he was murdered.
Slim was more the brains behind the scene and preferred to let his brother Baby occupy the spotlight. It was Baby’s idea to push bounce music onto the national scene. He knew they could capitalize on the sound. Master P of No Limit and Take Fo’ Records were already making money with New Orleans hip-hop. Take Fo’ promoted artists at concerts throughout the Southwest and Gulf. With only two companies putting out bounce, the Williams brothers figured there was room for them to get into this hip-hop hustle. Baby just had to find a way in.
When Baby was released from prison, he surveyed the local hip-hop scene. He got with his brother Slim, and they studied what was going on and how Master P was doing what he was doing. In 1992 they pressed forward and started their own record label, Cash Money Records. Baby and Slim traveled to nightclubs all over Louisiana to find hot artists to sign.
Before the internet and SoundCloud, getting new hip-hop artists noticed required legwork. It also took tens of thousands of dollars to make and market records that could be distributed to DJs and records shops. Baby claims that by the time he was twenty, he already had made a million dollars in the streets. This spawned rumors that Cash Money Records was launched with street money, which, throughout its long history, led the feds to always be sniffing around looking to topple the empire—targeting another set of Black men who had come up from the streets.
Cash Money’s first artist was a local named Kilo G who released the album The Sleepwalker in 1992. With one rapper in the game, the Williams brothers continued to recruit others. They were determined to find success and make Cash Money the preeminent New Orleans hip-hop label. Baby convinced his friend, a local DJ named DJ Mannie Fresh, to become their in-house producer. By the mid-90s, Cash Money Records had become a popular independent label and had a strong fan base in New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
In 1995, Cash Money artist Lil’ Slim was introduced to a then-twelve-year-old Dwayne Carter at a block party, and after hearing Dwayne rap, he was so impressed with his talent that he brought him to Baby’s attention. Dwayne ended up being signed as the youngest artist on the Cash Money label. Carter, who took the moniker “Baby D,” was then placed into a group with another young rapper, Lil Doogie, and they were known as the B.G.’z. The name B.G. or “Baby Gangsta” paid homage to Terrance “Gangsta” Williams, whose street pedigree was notorious.
Even Baby decided to get behind the mic—a true hustler making money by any means necessary—and if he could be the one shining in the spotlight, all the better. He originally rapped under the name “B-32” and performed with 32 Golds. Later, violence claimed the lives of popular Cash Money artists Kilo G, Pimp Daddy, and Yella Boi. It was a setback for the label but didn’t stem its success. In 1997, Baby D and Lil Doogie renamed themselves “Lil Wayne” and “B.G.,” respectively, and that same year Cash Money signed two other new artists, Turk and Juvenile.
The four young rappers were called the “Hot Boys,” a name they took from a Magnolia projects street crew that Terrance “Gangsta” Williams was involved with. This new bounce supergroup took Cash Money Records to a new level. The young Hot Boys released group and solo albums that all went platinum and multiplatinum and contained hit after hit. The phrase “bling-bling” popularized in their songs even made it into the national rap lexicon as well as Webster’s Dictionary.
In the early days, the Hot Boys’ raggedy tour bus became an avenue for making drug connects. Terrance “Gangsta” Williams sometimes traveled with the group so he could buy and sell heroin at hotels along the tour route. While the Hot Boys performed for growing crowds, Gangsta moved massive amounts of heroin amounting to $30,000 per stop. When older brother Slim objected, Gangsta gave him $10,000 to keep quiet and another $100,000 to hold for future buys.
Slim ended up spending this money on tour expenses, which led to rumors that Gangsta was investing drug money in Cash Money Records—a claim he denied. When he was later arrested for plotting a murder and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, the feds offered Gangsta a three-year sentence to snitch on Cash Money Records and the Williams brothers. He kept his mouth shut and received a life sentence plus twenty years. Keeping it gangsta like a real G.
Gangsta had avoided getting involved in his brothers’ hip-hop hustle because there was no fast money in it. He had seen them put in lots of hours to book shows, distribute product all over the South, and market their artists—only to have little to show for it. As he was locked up for his drug game, Cash Money Records signed a $30 million deal with Universal Records in 1998. Gangsta regretted nothing as his brothers supported him and his children financially while he was incarcerated.
They would even call him up while on tour and let him use his prison phone time to talk to celebrities they were partying with. “My time went by with ease,” recalled Terrance, though it wasn’t without hiccups. When Slim and Baby found out he was dealing drugs behind bars, they cut him off for six months. With the feds looking for any way to bust Cash Money Records, there could be no perception that the label was funding a drug enterprise. They had to avoid anything illegal.
After the Universal deal, Cash Money Records had a highly profitable run from 1997 all the way to 2019. They reinvented themselves and the game and had hit after hit. As artists on their label came and went, Cash Money Records still shined. After the release of the popular album Birdman, Baby took the “Birdman” moniker and stayed on top with solo albums, new groups, and remixes. He was a mogul who also rapped and performed.
Every hip-hop artist across the country and around the world wanted to collaborate with Cash Money, which led the roster to expand and include not only rappers but singers who ranged from Lil’ Mo to superstar Teena Marie. Cash Money Records also moved into films and books with Cash Money Films and Cash Money Content. Of all Cash Money artists, Lil Wayne was the breakout star. He performed at the Grammys and took home a few awards himself. Wayne also performed at the Super Bowl and routinely appeared on top hip-hop artist lists as one of the best spitters in the game. As an entrepreneur, he became president of Cash Money Records before branching off with his own label, Young Money Entertainment, which introduced the world to future stars Drake and Nicki Minaj.
Terrance “Gangsta” Williams was released in 2022 after serving twenty-three years of his life-plus-twenty sentence when he cooperated with the feds, giving them information on some unsolved murders. This snitching alienated Gangsta from his namesake B.G. and sibling Birdman. When Birdman put up money for Gangsta’s legal defense, he had set down rules. His stepbrother violated those rules, and the streets don’t tolerate snitches. That sentiment pervaded the New Orleans hip-hop community.
The feds never did pin an indictment on Baby and Slim. Unlike a lot of the hustlers who reached for the fame and the glory of thug life, Birdman left it behind. He stayed focused and achieved great success in the music industry. And in doing so he remains one of the few street legends to move into legitimate business and not end up incarcerated or killed.
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