Cash Money Records

How Did Birdman And Cash Money Records Become So Rich And Powerful?Random Celebrity ArticleBy Brian Warner on June 19, 2013

On a hot summer day in 1991, two brothers named Bryan and Ronald Williams launched a rap label called Cash Money Records. They hoped Cash Money would some day pull them out of one of New Orlean's most wretchedly poor housing projects. Neither of them had any experience running a record label, or even working in the music industry. They didn't own a recording studio and they didn't have any artists on their roster. But what they did have was a dream and the willingness to do whatever it took to be successful. The Williams brothers also may have had around $100 thousand dollars in cash at their disposal, that may have allegedly been provided by their drug kingpin half-brother Terrence. Allegedly. But that's besides the point. Fast forward 22 years and today Cash Money Records is one of the most successful and prolific record labels in the music industry. And its two founders Bryan "Birdman" Williams and older brother Ronald "Slim" Williams are two of the richest and most powerful people not just in hip-hop, but in all of entertainment. How did two guys from the projects, with nothing but a dream pull this off? Their story is pretty incredible…

Cash Money Records Is Born

When the Williams brothers founded Cash Money Records in 1991, the underground hip-hop scene in New Orleans was just starting to catch fire. A trend called "bounce music" was exploding all over Louisiana thanks to artists like DJ Irv and TT Tucker. The opportunity for a couple of ambitious entrepreneurs was ripe. To launch Cash Money Records (CMR), the Williams brothers first reached out to their father, who owned a popular local bar/nightclub. Unfortunately, a few thousand dollars from their dad didn't provide nearly enough for Cash Money to get off the ground. The real money that launched CMR came from their half brother Terrence Williams who was the founder of a notorious drug crew called the Hot Boys (not to be confused with the Cash Money rap group of the same name that came years later). Ronald and Bryan chose the name "Cash Money Records" as a reference to the recently released film "New Jack City", in which Wesley Snipes played a wealthy New York City gangster who runs a crew called the "Cash Money Brothers".

With their start up capital secured, the Williams brothers began signing local talent. Their first roster artist was a 16 year old kid named Kilo-G. Pretty soon they had around a dozen artists most notably Lil Slim, Mr. Ivan, PxMxWx and U.N.L.V. In those early days, the Williams brothers organized local shows then sold their artist's records right from the trunk of their car!

One of the most fundamental events in the history of CMR happened in 1993 when the label signed a talented DJ/producer named Mannie Fresh. Before Mannie Fresh came along, Cash Money's lyrics and sound were very raw and gangster rap influenced. On the other end of the spectrum, Manny Fresh had just spent more than a decade mixing and producing pop influenced house music beats for DJs in New York City. The combination of Manny's more consumer-friendly beats, with Cash Money's gangster image and lyrics, quickly came to be known as "Gansta Bounce". Gansta Bounce instantly struck a nerve with hip-hop fans throughout Louisiana.

Billion Dollar Brand

Cash Money Records is arguably the only major label in the world that has stayed relevant continuously for the last 20 years straight. There have been a few minor weak periods, but overall CMR has been able to sell millions of records every year since the launch of their incredible deal with Universal. Recently, Cash Money has even begun to aggressively diversify its artist roster in to non-rap areas of music. They won a bidding war to represent Canadian super star Drake, they signed Kevid Rudolph, Nicki Minaj, Busta Rhymes, Limp Bizkit, Jay Sean and even Paris Hilton. Birdman has stated publicly that Cash Money's ultimate goal is to release 100 albums a year from artists in every single genre of music. Even more amazingly, Birdman believes Cash Money Records is on pace to become the first billion dollar music brand of all time, within the next five years. In total, artists from Cash Money Records have sold over 150 million albums worldwide to date.

Thanks to the phenomenal success of Cash Money Records, today Birdman is sitting on an extremely impressive $170 million net worth. He drives a $5 million Bugatti and is rarely seen without wearing at least $10 million worth of jewelry. He lives in a stunning $14.5 million mansion on Miami's exclusive Star Island. As for Ronald "Slim" Williams, he recently spent $7.5 million purchase the largest house in South Florida. And the best part? He paid cash. As we all know, Lil Wayne is one of the most successful and active artists in the world today. Wayne's net worth recently topped $130 million.