 Andre 3000 | B.G.  |
Master P was one of the best hustlers to ever do this sh**. He did it big—35 albums in one year, bruh. Ain’t nobody ever did that.
For years, Bryan “Baby” Williams, 40, has made one thing clear: He’s not a rapper, he’s a game-spitter. It’s a distinction that should carry more weight in hip hop purist circles than it does. While Baby aka Birdman aka The No.1 Stunna’s mic skills may be debatable, there’s no denying his G.
As co-CEO of Cash Money Records—a title he shares with his brother and (nearly) silent partner Ronald “Slim” Williams—Baby is a throwback to a different era of rap execs, when the guy behind the guys was exactly the type of guy you didn’t want to see in the streets. As a rapper, he’s blunt and direct, fascinating in his audacity and surprisingly melodic with his flow.
In person, Baby is laid-back and hospitable, a posture undeniably afforded by years of earning his stripes. His loyalty to Lil Wayne, who he brought into the CMR fold when Wayne was just 11 and who he often refers to as his “son,” can be viewed with cynicism through one lens, but seen through another, is downright admirable. However you choose to interpret it, there’s no denying Baby, father of one of the most successful rap labels of all time. How you love that?
VIBE: First off, let me just congratulate you on the last year and a half.
Baby: No doubt, homie. Appreciate the love, bruh.
For sure. I know you put in a lot of work over the years to make that happen so in terms of that, I actually wanted to talk to you specifically about ’98. Obviously, you were there so you know what a big turning point that year was both for Cash Money and for the industry as a whole.
That was our first year. That was our first big year. That was the first year we really put out the name of it when we was with Universal when we was independent.
What was that time like for you and the label?
Shit, for us, we was just doing music, dog, ya heard me? Honestly, we was just rapping. Young, you know, doing it for ourselves, doing it for the ’hood, doing it for the block. Not as well educated as we is now with music and what it’s really about and the business of it. We was young and we was just having fun, bruh, just rapping.
I’ve always heard that it was the Hot Boys’ first album, Get It How U Live, that got you guys the deal.
Well, the album that got us the deal was the Big Tymers album [Ed: How U Luv That]. We had sold like 150,000 independent on me and Fresh’s [Big Tymers] album. At the time, Wayne, Juvie and all them, they was still young but we had did the Hot Boys album I think after that, or before that. But the album that got us the deal was the Big Tymers album. Then we was supposed to come with B.G.’s album but B.G. wasn’t ready at the time so we came with the Juvenile record and then it just blew up.
Do you remember those first phone calls from the majors when you were still independent?
Well going from independent for me and for us, we was putting music out on the regular. Every week, every other month, every month. So for me to adjust to a major, it was kind of a big shift because they like to set records up. I ain’t know nothing about setting records up. I knew we go hit these streets, promote this shit. We had a following, and we put the music out. So people were wanting our music and waited for our music. So once I got with Universal it was an adjustment ’cause they believe in setting the records up and that shit took months. It took two or three months just to set the single up. So I had to get in there and really educate myself to how they do things on a major level.
Do you remember getting calls about the deal, I mean, just how it all came about?
To me, I wasn’t really interested in it. We went up there. Really honestly, we lost a lot of friends and homies for the success. A lot of blood came with this life, with this music. Losing my momma, my daddy, my brother, my homies, Wayne’s daddy. You know, I feel like we had a lot of blood on this money and I didn’t wanna go up there and give these people something that we lost blood behind. So I refused to give up anything. I’ll do a P&D deal where we still own everything. I didn’t want to give up nothing we worked hard for. We really had blood on this money from losing family members. And my approach was, I wasn’t giving up nothing. We was already making millions of dollars independent and still hood. Straight out the projects, independent, making millions. People owed us so much money to where they was trying to slow us down on putting out music. So for me, when I went to [the label], either they’re gonna give me a lot of money and I’m not giving them nothing, or I can go back and do what I was doing. We was satisfied. We really didn’t wanna make a deal anyway ’cause we felt like they was gonna try and break us up and take our shit from us some kinda way.
And just to be clear, a P&D deal is…?
Press and distribute.
So did you guys get multiple calls or was it just Universal who called?
Oh, we spoke with everybody. Everybody. Anybody and everybody that was in the industry. I met with Def Jam; they turned us down. Russell said he didn’t like our artwork. I met with Sony; he said he didn’t like us. We was too gangsta, too ghetto. They wasn’t on that Southern shit. They was on that slick shit, you know, that smooth shit. They said we was too hard. I met with everyone and I got tired of meetings with motherfuckers. I like what Universal was doing and me and Tony Draper [Ed: Founder and CEO of Suave House Records] was cool. I liked what they was doing with 8Ball. I knew we had the streets. I needed the vision. And I liked how they was working on MJG and 8Ball so I chose to go with them. And they ain’t wanna take nothing.
Were you meeting all through ’97 or did that all happen right there in early ’98?
I don’t really recall, but it was all happening simultaneously. I’d leave, have meetings with them, then the other one would slide out and we’d slide back. I got tired of the dinners and champagne. Fuck all that. Who got the money? What we doing? Y’all wasting my time. I’m good at what I’m doing. Either y’all do this how we want to do it or I’ll just go back to what I’m doing. I ain’t really give a fuck. My attitude was like, let’s do it or fuck you. I’m gonna do what I was doing.
In the end, you guys landed such an unprecedented deal. Where did you get the model for the deal?
I grew up around business. My daddy was a businessman. And I just didn’t really want to lose nothing. I watched it. I studied this shit. I watched Suge Knight, Tony Draper, Eazy-E, Jermaine Dupri, P. Diddy, Master P–I watched these dudes and I didn’t wanna make the same mistakes that I saw. I wanted to own 100 percent of my shit as I do right now today. We own 100 percent, we still a P&D deal and they don’t even allow that type of shit in the music industry. And I refuse to give up anything. This is what y’all get and this is what we make.
Do you remember the day you guys actually did the deal, when all the paperwork was signed? Were you a part of that or was it more like your lawyers did that?
I mean, our lawyers did the negotiation. We had to sign the shit. I told them what I wanted. Yeah, we did it May 10, 1998, bruh. Every year, I know that’s [another] year we turned around.
Do you remember what that day was like? Did you get everybody? Were you guys all in New York? Were you in New Orleans?
Um, really we wasn’t tripping on the money ’cause I was already excited with being in the meeting. That was a meeting I’ve looked forward to since I was 17, 18 years old. And when I did that deal I was older so the money wasn’t more exciting than what we wanted to do with the music. The plan was we wanted to make hit records and be in this shit for a long time. It was about us being a family and with each other, when one hot the other ain’t. We rode off each other. That was my plan. That’s how I did that. That’s how I structured that shit. If one nigga was hot, everybody rode ’cause the heat gonna swing around. That one person won’t always be hot because if you didn’t have a family, after your album comes out, the next nigga’s album comes out. We stayed aboard like that. That’s how I structured that shit.
So did you guys go to dinner or anything after you signed the deal or was it kinda just like you went to work?
Um, well we was already doing dinner. We was already cool so for us we just broke bread and went in the lab. We just excited to be out the ’hood, to come out the projects and to have money. The shit really felt like a fuckin’ dream the way we went from having nothing, growing up in poverty, in the projects, to having millions of dollars at a young age—17 or 18 years old. It felt like the most exciting thing that could ever happen. A youngster my age with millions of dollars ain’t got a clue who I’m raising and they millionaires. And I’m a youngster myself raising youngsters in this music shit. This is what we’re gonna do. This is what we’re gonna do because I didn’t want these niggas to have to pull this lifeline that I was about to pull. So I wanted a better life for them, so I chose music and that’s what we stuck with.
Was it just you and your brother in New York doing the deal or was it everybody?
Nah, it was just us.
Did you call everybody else and let them know or did you just come back down.
Honestly, I let everybody make a decision. Really honestly, they didn’t want to do it.
Really?
None of them wanted to be with a major. Juvie comes from a major and he had fucked up experiences with them and he didn’t want to do it. Wayne wanted to do it. Geezy wanted to do it. Fresh didn’t want to do it. I was like, man, fuck it. It’s the only way we gonna grow because we’re outgrowing what we doing. So I was like, man, we about to settle this shit. I’m about to go get this money they got and gonna see what it do. We probably gonna expand ’cause at the time motherfuckers was fuckin’ with our Hot Boys shit getting us confused ’cause you know they had the No Limits out there. I was like, man, y’all can go out there. But you got to let the world know that we are the Hot Boys. This is our shit, our music. We doing this shit but the world don’t know. From New Orleans throughout the South, Houston, and all these other cities, they knew who we was but the world didn’t know.
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