Birdman founded Cash money Records and introduced the world to major artists like Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and Dre. With significant income from his oil business and label apparel brand, Birdman has an estimated net worth of over $100 million.
Also, Birdman and his adored prodigy Lil Wayne would have an epic falling-out that resulted in postponed albums, side fights, and a 51 million dollar lawsuit. But before these, below, is a quick history of Birdman and Cash money records.
By the age of five, Birdman was already an orphan, and for a while during his troubled youth, he resided in the dangerous Brittles Magnolia projects, a dilapidated boys' home. He was a resident of Prince George, Canada and sold narcotics when he was a teenager which landed him in priso. He and his elder brother Slim had a common goal of launching a musical label someday. That vision would ultimately become Cash Money Records, a major force in the music industry.
Bryan Christopher Williams, popularly known as Birdman or Baby, was born on February 15, 1969, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Along with his older brother Ronald slim Williams, he grew up in the Magnolia projects, one of America's most dangerous neighborhoods for housing. Even though he keeps a low profile and is somewhat of a mystery, Slim would have a significant role throughout the baby's childhood. According to Birdman, his brother kept him grounded and was completely the opposite of him.
When Brian was just 2 years old, their mother, who was known to everyone as Miss Gladys passed away. The boys were consequently raised incorrectly by their father Johnny and their stepmother. Johnny gave his lads insightful financial advice.
He was the owner of various local establishments, including bars and supermarkets. When Brian and Slim visited their father at work, they would see him conducting business.
In addition to giving the boys an opportunity to hear the music playing at their father's bars, this taught them the importance of being your own boss. They would develop a passion for music and eventually have the idea of launching their own label. But his father passed away while Brian was only five years old. After moving around a lot, they eventually spent two or three years in Canada's Prince George with an older sister. The siblings spent nearly two years in a boy's home without a legal guardian before their stepmom arrived to take them.
They were then homeless and forced to fend for themselves starting at the age of 10.
Birdman started stealing and selling drugs to make ends meet because he was reared on the streets. At the age of 16, he was detained for the first time on drug possession charges and received a three- to five-year prison term at the Cook County Correctional Facility. Birdman has said that prison is his own version of college and that he spent 22 months there.
Birdman claims that reading the Bible when he was imprisoned improved his life. He claimed that having a relationship with God made him feel responsible for his deeds and motivated him to abstain from violence. He no longer sees himself as extremely devout, but he still consults Minister Farrakhan frequently for spiritual advice.
After he was let out of prison, Baby and Slim made the decision to start their own record label. The first Birdman logo was genuinely hand-etched, but there was no studio, no producer, no artist, and it wasn't much of a label. Baby was in a precarious situation, but as the saying goes, nobody puts a baby in a corner.
An 8-year-old named Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., now known as Lil Wayne, was one of the first musicians the brothers tried to sign to the label. Wayne met Baby in the summer of 1991, and on his answering machine, he recorded freestyle raps. I'm not sure how, exactly, a large Birdman was hanging out with an eight-year-old. However, the two would grow close and their relationship became the focus of a lot of attention, gossip, and speculation. particularly after the couple began kissing on television.
Lil Wayne continued by claiming that as a minor, a group of adults, including Birdman, encouraged him to engage in adult sexual activity in front of them, which is extremely strange.
Together with another young artist named Lil Dougie, Dwayne adopted the stage name "baby D," and the two created the rap group known as the Bee Gees. They wouldn't release their first album for a while, but when they did, it would be "True story," which Cash Money released on July 29, 1995—many years before Lil Wayne would start to generate significant revenue for the label.
Baby still kept Lil Wayne close while growing the label into a major player in the market. Robert L. Johnson, Jr., a high school student who raps as Kilo G, was the next artist the label chose to work with. He was able to record "the sleepwalker," the first Cash Money song, in 1992 thanks to baby and slim. Only a few thousand copies of the album were sold, making it essentially a failure. Baby and Slim decided to change their staff after the incident.
At the time, kilo G was considered a horrorcore musician. The brothers decided to capitalize on the emerging bounce style of hip hop in New Orleans and were looking to sign a number of new artists, including Mike, Lil' Slim. He was a bounce artist who had just graduated high school but was attracting sizable crowds in nearby clubs. Several new labels approached him, but he ultimately chose Cash Money because of their professionalism and the work they had done with Kilo G.
Little Slim helped baby and slim get in touch with Mannie Fresh, who eventually joined them as their own producer and worked on all of their albums up until 2005. After bringing on Mannie Fresh, they set out to sign everyone who would later join the first group of Cash Money artists, including Pip Daddy, Mr. Ivan Misty, and Magnolia Shorty.
As he started to rap solo, Birdman would also record with the label under the name B-32 (Baby with the 32 golds).
Later, they would establish the Big Tymers with help from house producer Mannie Fresh. Cash Money had a burgeoning artist roster and a skilled in-house producer; they did, however, have a recording facility and ultimately set up in bird man's kitchen. Not long after, Cash Money music was dominating the southern airwaves, and by the late 1990s, their albums were selling tens of thousands of copies each.
Even though the label was earning a million dollars per month, the artists weren't getting any of it. In 1995, Lil Slim became the first artist to quit the label.
With the exception of the rap duo Bee Gees' tiny Doogie and baby Dee, every member of the first generation of Cash Money performers would depart within three years. Both artists adopted new monikers, becoming known as BG and Lil Wayne.
Cash Money Records was grabbing the attention of industry heavyweights just by losing their first generation. At this point, Universal Records wanted to enter the rap game and was looking for funding to do so.
Baby & Slims and the president of Universal signed a historic 30 million dollar agreement in March 1998, following six months of negotiations. Through the distribution of Cash Money artists' music, the agreement allowed Universal to enter the rap music market. In return, the brothers received millions of dollars in yearly advances, full ownership of their publishing and master recordings, and an astounding 80 percent profit margin on all records.
Baby had realized his dream when Cash Money became a major success, but his goal of becoming a well-known recording artist was still unfulfilled.
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