From the late '80s onward,
hip-hop was dominated by two regions,
the East and the West.
But Atlanta's rise in the mid '90s
marked the start of a new chapter in hip-hop.
A power shift to the South
that was rooted in regional pride,
and shaped by indigenous influences.
Because, all across the South,
free from preconceptions of what hip-hop could be or should be,
DJs, MCS and producers were creating the future of hip-hop...
including here: New Orleans.
New Orleans is a musical place, it's a magical place
when you talk about musicians.
You can find one on every corner.
You have so much mixture of different types of music in the city.
We call it "gumbo." You put a lot of different flavors in it, man,
and you get one big pot out of it.
It makes New Orleans unique, and people just wanna be a part of it.
As the birthplace of jazz and the home of Mardi Gras,
NOLA was bound to touch hip-hop.
This is a city where music underscores everything.
Because in New Orleans, there's music in life,
and there's music in death.
It's important to understand
that New Orleans is the most Africanized city in America.
Because the French were very lax with the slaves,
the Africans who were brought here
were able to retain a lot of African culture.
In African culture, we don't look at death as "the end,"
we look at it as the next phase,
and you're supposed to celebrate that.
"Second line" is based on a New Orleans jazz funeral,
where you have the band leading the family down to the grave site.
That's the first line, is the family and the band,
and it's very somber.
And, on the way back,
whoever else joins in,
that becomes the second line
and it's really a party.
The second line is like a magnet.
You draw all kinds of people in and they all walk in the streets together,
like, in one big ol' pile.
It's how we end off a party, with a great second line, baby.
- That's it. - Oh. Watch out, y'all.
If you go to the second line, as the band's playing,
a couple of people will pick up something and play with them.
I don't care if it's a bottle or a stick,
a screwdriver hitting on a stop sign,
they will find something just to be part of what the band's doing.
New Orleans is just related to music,
and it's just our DNA.
We move to a different beat in New Orleans.
The influence of the Mardi Gras Indians,
and the second line bands are in us every time we get ready to write a rhyme.
What it is, is a lot of chanting.
Call and response is a big part of it, right?
I love it. I'm about to show you what it is.
Alright.
When I say "Cheeky," you say "Blakk."
- I'm Cheeky. - Blakk.
- We rockin', we rollin' with Cheeky. - Blakk.
- You movin', you groovin' with Cheeky. - Blakk.
I love the way you really sing it with Cheeky.
- Blakk. - Twerk up.
- I forgot that one already. - Twerk something.
Something... I already forgot it.
It all connects: the Mardi Gras Indians,
the second line sound.
You heard all that good stuff like that at block parties.
And it's the beat.
It's the beat that gets the feet moving,
and the hands clapping, and the people jumping.
On that note, block parties here,
were they a big thing when you were growing up?
Oh, most definitely.
You say they got a block party here,
everybody meeting at that location.
You got guys on motorbikes,
you got girls in their high shorts.
Wherever the girls go, the fellas will follow.
Block parties really used to be in the projects, you know.
We used to call it the DJ,
and that's how a lot of DJs made a name for themselves.
You know, the late, great Sabu,
he was, like, one of the first mobile DJs we had in New Orleans.
He was, like, the record man, and he would pass on your block,
and he would play records, and, you know,
he gave block parties before block parties were block parties.
Then Sabu had a baby.
He was, like, a child prodigy.
He could do everything at a young age.
I'm not surprised that he is one of the greatest producers in the game.
His love for music was just always there.
He was always trying to push the envelope.
DJ Sabu rocked block parties across New Orleans,
but his biggest legacy was right at home.
Because, while Sabu was working the turntables,
his son was watching and listening,
soaking up the game and learning the craft.
And, he'd apply all his knowledge
to set the tone for the sound of NOLA hip-hop.
My dad, Sabu, was a street DJ in New Orleans,
and his performances were crazy.
I remember my dad used to come home with 'DJ of the Year' trophies.
Early on, my dad did block parties.
I just remember my dad back-spinning Chic, "Good Times."
♪ Good times ♪
♪ Gimme gimme gimme good times ♪
I had never heard the song before,
but I was just like, "Whatever the fuck that is,
I need to learn how to do that."
That was the defining moment. That record.
It was life-changing.
I practiced 24/7, all day,
get on my mom's nerves, my dad's nerves.
He a DJ, but he still going,
"Turn that shit off."
I started DJing block parties.
Now, at the time, Miami bass had started jumping off.
I noticed that everybody in New Orleans loves 808 beats.
I started bringing my 808 drum machine to the gigs,
and that caught on.
Kids would be like,
"Hey, when you gonna play the drum machine?"
This is what people wanted me to do, more than DJing.
At the time, I was working at Allen Toussaint's Sea-Saint studio.
The guy in there was like,
"Do you know any rappers?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, I know this guy, Gregory D."
So they're just like, "If y'all wanna make a song,
y'all can do it,
but it's gotta kind of sound like something New Orleans."
This is somebody's idea of how I'm gonna merge hip-hop with jazz.
And, I'm automatically going,
"If I get a chance, I'm just gonna put some 808 drums in there."
And I'm like, "It ain't gonna be no horns and all."
I laid the beat down,
and I was like,
"What if I just tripled the snares and all of that?"
The drums started sounding like,
"Well, damn, that's like a New Orleans pattern."
It came from growing up here.
I just turned this...
this 808 drum into the New Orleans second line
jazz drumming.
And so, Greg was like,
"I know how to make it traditional New Orleans buck jump."
"Buck jump" is pretty much a dance in New Orleans.
It's what you do when you second line.
It was like, "Okay, this is what classic New Orleans wanna hear."
They like, "Yeah, say something about buck jumping, about unity,
keep everybody together or whatever."
So, that's how this song came.
♪ Buck jump time ♪
♪ That Caliope ♪
♪ Buck jump time ♪
♪ That Melpomene ♪
♪ Buck jump time ♪
♪ That Magnolia ♪
♪ Buck jump time ♪
♪ St. Thomas ♪
♪ Buck jump time ♪
When I did "Buck Jump"... Let me explain this to you.
The thing about New Orleans that's so different...
You know how some people will claim the Eastside or the Westside?
They claim "wards" down here.
Third Ward, Fourth Ward,
Fifth Ward, Sixth Ward, Seventh Ward, Eighth Ward.
I took the chance. I'm like, "You know what?
I'm gonna talk about every project and every ward in New Orleans,
and I'm gonna make these motherfuckers lose their motherfucking mind
by claiming their goddamn wards."
♪ Uptown, Third Ward, That Caliope ♪
♪ Melpomene, Magnolia, The Home Of Dope ♪
♪ St. Thomas, Lafitte, The Iberville’s hard ♪
♪ And that Seventh Ward St. Bernard ♪
The song was huge, but every time I played the song,
a fight would start.
"Buck jump time! That Caliope. Buck jump time! That..."
And the next minute, boom, everybody would be fighting.
But, when you played this at a party,
some preppy kids, they got off the dancefloor.
They be like, "Nah, I'm not messing with that."
Like, when that played, fights.
It's like a war call.
When this record comes on,
anybody that you have a problem with,
when that song comes on, that's the cue to go looking for him.
"Now, we 'bout to handle this right now."
♪ That Third Ward kicking it? Hell yeah! ♪
♪ That Fifth Ward kicking it? Hell yeah! ♪
♪ That Seventh Ward kicking it? Hell yeah! ♪
♪ That Eighth Ward kicking it Hell yeah! ♪
They used to go off, man. This ward's going against this ward.
This ward's going against that ward.
We did the record for togetherness.
But, we opened up a door
that everybody saw that, "You know what? this shit can happen down here."
"Buck Jump Time" was a breakthrough for NOLA's hip-hop scene,
bridging the gap between New York-style hip-hop
and New Orleans' traditional rhythms and chants.
That was a logical evolution for hip-hop in The Crescent City,
But, sometimes hip-hop grows in unexpected ways,
and for NOLA,
serendipity would come in the form of an unknown record
from an unsung rap group.
"Triggerman" was just this popular song
that I started spinning.
It was from New York.
A shoutout to The Showboys.
The real name of the song was "Drag Rap,"
but we started calling it "Triggerman"
because there's one of the parts in the song
where he says something about "Triggerman."
♪ Bugs can can And filthy Triggerman ♪
The drums was hard, and it had these crazy breaks
where the snares went...
Then, it would break down into this cool 808 beat.
This pivotal beat changes the city.
Everybody is jamming to it, but there's no words to it.
My dad is still DJing, right?
My dad was like,
"Hey, there's this dude, T.T. Tucker, and DJ Irv.
They'll come to these little spots that I'm doing,
holes in the wall, and I'll just let them rock.
They jamming off some of the beats that, you know, like, you playing."
At Ghost Town club,
DJ Irv is just doing cuts over "Triggerman,"
and Tucker just gets up there and starts chanting,
"Where Dey At? Where Dey At? Where Dey At?"
And, it was just chants,
call and response.
Whenever that record came on,
the "Where Dey Ats," you knew, this is the Seventh Ward, where they at.
You throw up the sevens, you know, "Where Dey At?
You know, that started the whole movement in New Orleans.
It was recorded horrible, trashy sounding,
but it was just so in your face.
What I didn't know was this was the start of bounce music.
DJ Irv's "Where Dey At?" was a lo-fi underground smash
that introduced NOLA to the infectious "Triggerman" sample,
and the city couldn't get enough of it.
Because, somewhere between the booming 808s and staccato percussion,
the city found more than a special record.
They found bounce music.
♪ Start this shit off right ♪
♪ We got New Orleans in the house tonight ♪
Yes, sir.
Hey, what's up, man? What's up?
Obviously, "Triggerman" was an important record
for the evolution of bounce music.
What did you think when you first heard that record?
Well, we always kind of had it in rotation, playing here.
I was the DJ.
It was really nothing but "Triggerman."
It was hours and hours of nothing but that one loop.
And how did you hone your skills as far as getting on the mic
and getting the crowd participation?
The girls who would come and used to...
You could win $500 for a pussy pop contest.
Believe it or not.
When I got up on the mic, I'd just say anything to make you move.
Ask you where you from, where you at,
tell a ho to put her back down, you know.
♪ Where they at girl? Uh, where they at girl? ♪
♪ Uh, where they at girl? Uh, where they at girl? ♪
What I was trying to express was that this music here made everybody dance.
I'm just feeling what we were doing in these places.
That song, it was just so popular.
Beyond New Orleans, too. It was on Billboard, right?
First six weeks, it went gold.
If you didn't play this record on your radio station,
you probably wasn't listening.
They had to play it.
♪ Do it baby, stick it baby Do it baby, stick it baby ♪
♪ Do it baby, stick it Stick it baby do it ♪
♪ Uh, shake that body like a salt shaker ♪
♪ Shake, shake that body like a salt shaker ♪
DJ Jimi is the king of bounce.
I mean, it sort of starts with him, in my opinion.
When you think about all the great bounce musicians,
most of them revolved around Jimi in some way.
I don't know who originally started it,
but DJ Jimi made bounce famous.
It was the first bounce record that left from the city to somewhere else.
♪ Shake, shake, shake that body girl ♪
♪ Well alright ♪
♪ It must be yo stamps 'Cause it ain’t yo face ♪
DJ Jimi changed the whole scene, man.
He sold a lot of albums, and he opened up the doors.
That's when we knew he had our sound.
- And that inspired you? - That definitely inspired me.
When I put out "Do The Jubilee All," in 1993,
I did not know that it was gonna fly that way.
♪ Do the Jubilee All ♪
♪ Do the Jubi, do the Jubi Do the Jubilee All ♪
♪ Do the Jubilee All Do the Jubilee All ♪
♪ Do the Jubi, do the Jubi Do the Jubilee All ♪
DJ Jubilee comes out with it.
Same song. Identical.
Which is cool in bounce.
If you don't understand it, you're like,
"Well, why does everything have the same damn beat?
"Didn't that song just go off?"
And, you know, but, that's just the way it is.
This city just takes something and runs with it.
My style came different, because I was the only one really dancing.
I used to DJ at high school, and we started doing dances,
and challenges and stuff.
I came up with the first dance, "Do The Jubilee."
I was sliding side to side, "Do The Jubilee."
Then, the next week, somebody came with another dance, the "Beanie Weenie."
Every week, we had a new, different dance.
So, now I got the hottest dance in the city.
I started getting smart, I'm like,
"Hold up, we got all these dances,
and everybody doing so many different dances,
let me put it on a song."
♪ I do the KC, I do the KC ♪
♪ I do the K, do the K, do the KC ♪
♪ Stop, pause ♪
♪ If you got to be real... ♪
Every song that he made, he made you dance with the song.
It was like Simon Says.
Jubilee was our Simon Says of the bounce,
and if he said "Do the beanie weenie,"
you backing it up and doing the beanie weenie.
If he said "Do the Eldon DeLloyd," you do the Eldon DeLloyd.
They used to have girls flipping, you know, hands on the ground,
and their feet on the wall and, like, twerking.
And I'm like, "Holy shit. I wanna do that."
Many people say that's the first time
they heard "twerk" on a record.
The girl's shaking it in front of us, right?
They took the word "work," and put a "T" on it, saying,
"They be twerking it!"
That's how we joke. "Twerking it."
That's another signature of New Orleans. You gotta deal with it.
♪ Shake baby, shake baby, shake, shake, shake baby ♪
♪ Shake baby, shake, shake, shake ♪
♪ Twerk baby, twerk baby twerk, twerk, twerk baby ♪
♪ Twerk baby, twerk, twerk, twerk ♪
Back then, when we started twerking it, it was new.
We done shook on top of rooftops, cars, taxis, buses.
We shook it at second line funerals.
We the best twerkers in the country.
If you wanna see some real shaking going on, shaking is in New Orleans.
♪ Shake it like a dog, Shake like it a dog, woof, woof ♪
♪ Shake it like a dog, Shake it like a dog, woof ♪
♪ Shake it like a dog, Shake it like a dog ♪
♪ Shake it, shake it, shake it ♪
It's music, I guess you can just have fun with.
And, like, growing up in New Orleans,
you hear the music, you know, coming up as a child,
like, one, two, three years old, like, your parents gonna try to,
"You better do it! Bend over! Shake!"
You know, they, like, teach you how to do it.
You know, you play, like "Triggerman," the DJ hollering,
"Okay, everybody get on the wall."
You know, you get on the wall.
"Get on the table," you know.
"Get on the chair. Raise your leg up in the air."
"Bend over, touch, put that hump in your back."
You know, if you don't feel it when the music playing,
you'll never get it.
♪ I watch ya slide Giddy up, giddy up ♪
♪ I do the duck Do the duck, do the duck ♪
♪ I watch ya slide Giddy up, giddy up ♪
♪ I do the duck Do the duck, do the duck ♪
First, it was Jimi, then it was Jubilee, then it was me.
I was one of the first girls to put a bounce record out.
I just didn't like what the boys were saying.
You know, "Suck a nigga dick" and this.
So, once I didn't like what they were saying,
and the other girls agreed that they didn't like what they was sayin',
and they put their two cents in it,
and before you know it, as a guy would drop, a girl would drop.
Bounce was the dominant form of hip-hop in New Orleans.
If you weren't doing bounce,
you had a hard time, you know,
finding a big, mass audience in this city.
It was...
It was that powerful.
It was to a point where it didn't matter who was on the record,
that "Triggerman" beat alone gave you an advantage to rock the crowd.
All you had to do was just say the right shit, and don't fuck up.
Bounce music became our own thing because we started feeling like,
"We don't care what the rest of the world doing,
we're gonna do what we do."
We didn't care how big you were in the world.
When you come to our city, it's us.
We were just as big, bigger than you.
We were cocky, man.
Super cocky.
It's something that people can get into, and have fun,
and not think about their problems at the time.
This is the music that we make through our everyday struggle.
The energetic, party-oriented tempo of bounce
gave NOLA a signature sound
that was rooted in the city's rich jazz and second line tradition.
It also gave the city a release...
...because, throughout the '90s,
the reality of black life in New Orleans was entirely different.
NOLA was besieged by drugs and violence,
with the highest homicide rates in America.
This was the other side of New Orleans,
but you wouldn't find it on a bounce record.
NOLA needed a different outlet,
and it would be a shrewd hustler from NOLA's Third Ward
who would bring this reality to the world.
These little kids ain't even five or six years old.
They done seen murders right there, on the spot.
You know, I seen a murder at four years old right here.
I grew up in Third Ward, Caliope Projects.
At the time,
it was one of the most dangerous places in the world to live.
Most of the crimes that happened in New Orleans,
probably half of it happened in the Caliope Projects.
This is for real.
The City of New Orleans and the hoods been at war since we were kids.
Yeah, I was in the military, I went to Desert Storm.
What was the difference?
Only thing, they just had bigger guns and missiles.
New Orleans has a record of homicides this year.
It has by far the highest murder rate of any big city in the nation.
Five times the number of murders in cities of comparable size.
You know, me and brother Kevin,
we used to sit in the projects and say,
"Who gonna die first?"
If you lived to be 19, you a OG in the projects.
That was our magic number, man. If we could live to be 19,
you know, we'd made it.
And, I mean, he died at that age.
And, that just... that tore something out of my heart.
You know, when I watched my mom,
her whole world turned upside down,
and I'm like, "I don't wanna keep putting her through this.
I have to do something better with my life."
That's what really made me go hard with the music.
You know, I named my company "No Limit,"
because there's gonna be no limit to my success,
and I named myself "Master P"
because I said I'm gonna master whatever I do.
I was listening to Ice-T, "Colors."
"I am a nightmare walking, psychopath talking."
That music did something for me.
You know, hearing the bounce music, it was a lot of party music,
which was a good sound for New Orleans,
but I felt like we were missing something, you know?
Seeing so many people die young,
seeing the crime, seeing the poverty.
You know, it just poured out of me.
I was able to tell my story.
I'm just talking about what I see.
I mean, look around.
You see a bunch of mansions around here?
- Do you? - No.
Okay. Well, that's reality.
That's what I'm talking about.
♪ Grew up in the ghetto, raised by a killa ♪
♪ TRU across my stomach ♪
♪ Your neighborhood thug nigga trying to make it ♪
♪ Out this fucked up environment ♪
♪ Where niggas die trying to make a dollar out of 15 cent ♪
♪ The ghetto got me crazy I smell daisies ♪
♪ But I can’t die tonight my old lady pregnant with a baby ♪
♪ Tupac said... ♪
I built No Limit on $10,000.
I put up my own posters. I went to every hood.
I started taking my van, and going from hood to hood,
selling my CDs.
That's the whole thing.
I started selling it out of the trunk.
I mean, we would be in DC, and here's the thing,
we weren't supposed to be in DC.
That's like somebody going into Compton or whatever.
We were just so about hustling, we didn't care about the dangers.
It's all we have, so we here.
And people were like,
"Y'all crazy enough to come in the neighborhood,
you know what? Gimme the CD."
♪ So when I die put me in a pine box ♪
♪ Bury me like a G, 2 glocks And a fuckin’ bag of rocks ♪
No Limit, that wasn't no, you know, no bounce shit.
You could hear a hard life in that music,
but that's the way of life in New Orleans.
We gutter.
We gutter, bro. We gutter. We so goddamn gutter.
And the street cats, they wanna hear what they can relate to.
♪ Take me Lord tell me Is there a heaven for a gangsta? ♪
♪ Gangsta, gangsta ♪
Master P, when he hit the scene,
everybody was like, "Okay,"
but it wasn't that New Orleans sound.
So, we had to kind of learn,
"Okay, what's going on with No Limit?"
A lot of people didn't like his music in the beginning, right?
Bitches all used to be throwing that man's fucking CDs back at him.
I remember that.
It seemed when Master P started dominating outskirts,
then New Orleans was like,
"Master P!"
New Orleans is, like, an ass-kissing city.
They gonna like you after the fact.
I remember buying a CD and a cassette from Percy Miller
before I knew him or even worked with him,
because I felt like,
"I'm gonna support this dude, man. He out here selling his own stuff."
I'll never forget this, because he had his socks way up to here,
and I'm like, "Man, what's this dude doing with his socks way up to here?"
I'm not clowning him,
I'm just saying that he was confident in who he was,
and I just thought that was dope.
I was different, you know.
It might give you a slow start,
but being different is going to carry you a long way.
We got a whole different plan.
They can't stop us, because, eventually, we gonna leak in.
P wanted to be respected as a major label,
which meant that you had to put out more records.
He scoured the city,
and he did what I like to call "corporate raiding."
He raided every label
and got their top artists.
Master P came to my house, and he just explained to me
what his plans were for No Limit.
And, he was like,
"It's an independent label,
but they're gonna look at it like a major label.
I'm gonna make history,
and it's gonna be big,
and I want you to be a part of it."
It was something about the way he said it, I could feel it.
I knew that he was gonna do what he said he was gonna do.
In the house with my No Limit soldiers, and, you know what, we timeless.
'Bout to represent that Third Ward to the world.
And you know who we is?
We No Limit Soldiers. I thought I told ya...
P got the greatest MCs from the city.
He had Mystikal, Soulja Slim.
Everybody came there.
It was just, like, open house to whoever wanna rap,
and then you had five people doing beats for you.
Beats By The Pound.
So, as soon as he finished a song, we pulling up the next.
Relentless hustle.
No Limit was like a big-ass freestyle.
P fed off of everybody.
This is how it all formed
for No Limit to become what it is.
All of us being together in the studio, 24/7,
you know, songs were just cranking out of us.
I felt like I had the best of the best for us making music.
So, when I heard the beat for "Make 'Em Say Uhh!",
I felt like I needed to put this city on the map.
♪ I’m the colonel of the gold and platinum tank ♪
♪ Y’all after big thangs We after big bank ♪
♪ Third ward hustlas Soldiers in combat ♪
♪ Convicts and dealers And wheelers with TRU tats ♪
♪ Never gave no damn about No broads and no witches ♪
♪ And dudes come short And I’m diggin' ditches ♪
♪ MP pulling stripes, Commander-in-chief ♪
"Make 'Em Say Uhh!", man.
He turned around and said, "Look, this is gonna be a big song,
a big-ass song,
and everybody gonna wanna get on here.
Whoever ready with their verse is getting on here,
and that's gonna be the order."
I remember writing on the wall, piece of paper, I was ready.
"A'ight, Fiend, you go ahead," you know.
He didn't ask to hear it.
I went up in there,
"Fiend exercising his right of exorcism, bustin' out the Expedition"
♪ Bullets choppin' haters Business to about the size of prisms ♪
♪ Our mission They heard we scary, ♪
♪ No Limit mercenary ♪
♪ No tellin' how bad it get Because the worst'll vary ♪
No Limit Records, it was all these artists, producers,
all sharing this type of energy,
moving as one unit.
And, it just became something to be reckoned with, man.
♪ Make ‘em say uhh, uhh ♪
♪ Na-nah na-nah, na-nah na-nah ♪
♪ Make ‘em say uhh, uhh ♪
♪ Na-nah na-nah, na-nah na-nah ♪
"Make 'Em Say Uhh!" was our first big mainstream record.
That was the first record that went everywhere.
You know, that was all your work,
you know, everything that you put into this,
here's your trophy for it.
Y'all don't understand. 1998, we put out 26 albums.
They were like, "How did y'all do this shit?
How in the fuck y'all do it?"
In '98, things were just going at a crazy pace.
I'd imagine that time would be a bit of a blur,
but what do you remember of the process?
It was like a factory, you know.
It was like a factory, but, we had fun doing it.
Albums were getting done quick.
You had five producers.
I go to you, I don't even get time to listen to it.
Now I go in the next room to him,
and keep coming back around 'til my album was done.
♪ We got the industry locked, We can’t be stopped, too hot ♪
♪ Check the spots that we got, on Billboard ♪
♪ This tank can set up roadblocks ♪
♪ We fadin' all our foes Want some mo? ♪
I wrote and recorded 16 songs in 10 days,
and it came out number two in the Top 200,
and the only person that was on top of me was Céline Dion.
Now, how could you be mad at that? That's Céline Dion!
You know, I remember going to KLC's house.
The wall was five, six, seven times longer than this wall.
They had plaques as far as you could see.
The whole wall was filled with plaques.
Them boys did more in a year
than most record companies do in their whole tenure.
I love all y'all niggas, for real.
All you motherfuckers that kept it real with No Limit.
I made my motherfucking money the right way.
This is the turning point for New Orleans music.
P, as an independent, had a distribution deal
which means that they are actually standalone labels
that have total control of their own music,
and they get the majority of the money.
That's unheard of.
They awakened a sleeping giant in Southern hip-hop,
because labels looked at P and said,
"If he can do it, we can do it."
Me going up against the music industry independently,
without having to sell your soul,
and being an African-American kid from New Orleans is unheard of.
Talk about hustle,
I am the best hustler
that ever came out of Louisiana, New Orleans, the South.
♪ Na-nah na-nah, na-nah na-nah ♪
Master P and No Limit put New Orleans on the map in hip-hop,
but while No Limit's hardcore style sold major units,
their sound was still a departure for the city.
New Orleans was still ruled by bounce,
but in the duality of the city, there was an opportunity.
And NOLA had no shortage of hard-working hustlers,
including a pair of brothers from the city's tough Magnolia Projects,
who would follow Master P's blueprint for independent success.
We the millennium.
We've come to take this game and bring it to me.
We gonna be here. I ain't no fly-by-night nigga.
Gonna be here two years, three years.
I got this shit.
I met Baby and Slim.
I was DJing in the Caliope,
and that's way out of my area.
But every week, the drug dealers had me there,
because they wanted to keep that crowd out there.
Baby and them were there.
He was just like, "I wanna make records
and I think you're the dude, you know, that could bring it to the next level."
I think Baby could sell space heaters in hell.
This dude will give you a speech,
and y'all could be down by a hundred points,
and he can make your ass believe that you're going to win that game.
Now, at the time, they had an artist called Kilo G,
and I'm going, "That's cool, but bounce is popular right now.
Let's try a bounce record and see what happens."
Well, I'd heard about these dudes from my dad, called U.N.L.V.
They were three little dudes who would just go around,
rapping off of breakbeats or whatever,
but they had a following.
You know, there were only, like, three different labels in New Orleans,
and they was one of them,
and they were trying to get their label off the ground,
and we weren't even in the studio.
We recorded our first album in Mannie Fresh's kitchen,
as a matter of fact.
Every album that we had done a lot of numbers, you know.
We did real well with them.
We opened the doors for them to sign other artists,
added a little more revenue.
And, what we were doing differently,
we were actually using the bounce tracks,
but we were putting gangsta lyrics on top of it.
What was different about Cash Money was,
we were telling stories with our bounce.
We had the catchy beats or whatever,
but it was more of a reality bounce.
Baby and Slim, what do you remember of that relationship?
Like, did they have different roles in Cash Money?
What I can say about them, they knew how to pick talent.
Oh, my god, bro, they have a gift.
Baby and Slim, they were always looking for new artists.
You know, we had U.N.L.V. for a long time,
but it was, you know, it was time for a new little era.
We knew what time it was.
I think it was, it was, like, a part of Baby and Slim's strategy
to almost recreate a U.N.L.V.,
but also add more to the company.
Cash Money's vision for reality bounce was a turning point for the label,
but they needed rappers to pull it off,
and who better than a prodigy of the bounce scene:
A gold-toothed rapper who got his start with DJ Jimi,
and went by the name of Juvenile.
♪ Now bounce for the Juvenile Bounce for the Juvenile ♪
♪ Bounce trick Bounce, bounce, bounce ♪
♪ I say bounce for the Juvenile Bounce for the Juvenile ♪
- Glad you made it. - Thank you so much.
Let's do it.
So, why don't we just start at the beginning,
and tell me how you connected with DJ Jimi.
I mean, I started off rapping at the block parties.
It was only, like, a couple of us who could actually walk up,
grab the microphone, and just start running it.
And, shit, I was one of them. I was upper echelon.
Jimi got an opportunity to take me to the studio.
When I got in there, I realized I was gonna be the writer.
You know, I thought I was going in there to do songs for myself.
I wrote damn near every song on the album.
"Bounce ,"
I did that just to put my name out there.
Like, it was a slick way of getting on his album.
♪ Juvenile will kill ya Juvenile will kill ya ♪
♪ I’m quick for fucking ya bitch and I'm quick to pull a trigger ♪
♪ I'm an uptown villain, I got that heart ♪
♪ I'm raised up on the streets... ♪
The "Bounce " song
actually blew up.
It made record companies pay attention to the little cat in the background.
You know what I'm saying, like, "Wait, hold up. So he wrote all that?"
I was actually at the bus stop on Canal Street.
Baby and them pulled up on me, like
"Man, I wanna talk to you."
They picked me up from the bus stop, man, took me to the studio.
I ain't never looked back.
Juvie was established,
but it's this other kid,
he's a prodigy, nuts, he can rap.
It's Lil Wayne.
Now, at the time, Lil Wayne is 11, 12, something like that.
Magnolia Shorty, rest in peace,
she was like, "Hey, I know a little guy, Turk.
Nice on the mic."
She brings him in.
And BG, he's from Baby and them's block.
So, now we got four solo dudes,
and I get this idea to say, like:
"Dude, this is what we gonna do.
To build everybody else's career off of this,
I'm gonna put y'all together
and become The Hot Boys.
It was almost like a boy band,
some thug boy band group.
It was the whole movement of, you know,
you want people to turn into this.
You want people to turn into, "I want to be like these dudes."
BG's straight gangster, straight street.
Wayne, real witty, clever with words.
Turk was the freak of the clique, and I'm the old dude.
Straight up.
It was really the actual transformation of Cash Money.
They let all the other artists go. I mean, everybody.
The room went from a room full of people
to five or six people,
and that's including the producer, Baby, Slim, and the groups.
The fingers were just pointing at,
"Now y'all gotta do it."
♪ What kinda boy that be full of that dro? ♪
♪ What kinda boy freeze shop like a Eskimo? ♪
♪ Juvie what kinda boy wanna be like me? ♪
♪ A boy that wanna go get that ‘98 Mercedes ♪
♪ BG what kinda boy got 10 round his neck, wha? ♪
♪ 20 on his wrist, wha? ♪
The whole concept of how MCs worked off each other,
like back in the G.
That was my thought on how I was gonna work The Hot Boys.
A modern day Furious Five.
At the time, it was the leather thing
that they did, or whatever, but it was the uniform.
Everybody had the same thing on.
Everybody moved as one.
It was the bandana, the long white Ts.
Damn, dawg. It's the Furious Five redub.
I'm Melle Mel in there.
They're jealous.
I can't be nobody else but Melle Mel.
Damn, I didn't know that's how he saw that.
The look is the Magnolia.
Before we even got around, did anything with Cash Money,
we were wearing T-shirts, Girbauds and Reeboks.
We got packs of T-shirts, and packs of rags, and boxes of soldiers.
Man, we would show up to an event,
and they'd see us earlier that day,
and they all think we had the same clothes on,
"Yo man, that's bad. We gotta change our wardrobe."
♪ Man, look What kinda nigga just dress in all black ♪
♪ Fitted hats, long flats Four slugs, lots of tats? ♪
♪ Hold up What kinda nigga ride 20 inch chrome ♪
♪ Turning off his phone 'Cause hoes don’t wanna leave him alone? ♪
We are Hot Boys.
We fires that can't be put out.
You could call every fire engine truck in the United States
and let 'em wet us down,
but we still gonna burn.
We still gonna burn.
It was undeniable, because all of them were dope artists.
Dope rappers, dope lyricists,
and you had the sound that Mannie Fresh had introduced,
which was bounce, but with a twist.
You know, you just wanna get rowdy with it.
And, that resonated everywhere.
People liked that raunchy sound, that "let's get wild" sound.
♪...the hot boys, the hot boys ♪
♪ Them niggas is the hot boys The hot ♪
♪ Them niggas is the... ♪
They did a big impact with The Hot Boys.
Everybody wanted to be like them,
with the white T-shirts, and the Girbauds on.
Everybody with the do-rag on.
Nobody was putting no suits on.
They did so much independently. I mean, like, a lot.
But, when you selling a lot on your own, record companies start looking at that.
That whole record deal with Universal,
it was a shock to the music industry.
I feel like they didn't understand
that we were gonna put out a decent amount of albums.
The quality of the sound.
Like, they didn't know, really, like
"Who are these cats?
What did they do to get 30 million dollars?"
It was a fun time for us.
How the hell are y'all out there?
Uhh!
Put the light on them bitches.
That's a hundred Gs, player.
You see the bling in 'em?
Get a good shot of 'em, cousin.
Cash Money was always known for a flossing label.
The stunting thing came about when the big deal came,
the world knew that Baby and Slim signed and had a lot of money,
and Baby also got the opportunity to really come front line.
Let me know everything there is to know about Cash Money.
A'ight. First thing to know about us,
I got the rap game on lock.
You must know that first.
Can't nothing or nobody fake what we trying to do
and what we about to do.
Second thing is,
we got this game on our level.
Y'all understand what I'm saying?
Now, Cash Money is solidified.
You had BG fans,
you had Lil Wayne fans, you had Turk fans and you had Juvenile fans.
They gave everybody a platform.
To build everybody else's career off of this,
now we really gonna break y'all down into solo artists.
Next week, we doing Juvenile's album.
Cash Money had been out,
but they hadn't gotten to where No Limit was yet.
And then, when that 400 Degreez album came out,
it took over as the number one
rap sound in New Orleans.
Always in the back of our minds, we was... We had to do real good on our art,
try to be better than No Limit.
Not saying that we were chasing them.
They were the ones in the game.
Like, if you gonna beat anybody in the music game,
or compete with anybody coming from New Orleans,
you gotta at least be close
to where No Limit at.
We went from here, to here,
and I knew, you gotta follow up.
Especially on a national album.
At the time, I really felt like if anybody was gonna make a bounce record,
and make everybody like it and break it to the world,
it was going to be me.
That was my focus.
I was like, "Just gimme a real fast beat and let me go."
♪ Cash Money Records taking over for the '99 & the 2000 ♪
♪ Girl you working with some ass, yeah, you're bad, yeah ♪
♪ Make a nigga spend his cash, yeah ♪ His last, yeah ♪
♪ Hoes frown when you pass, yeah, They mad, yeah ♪
♪ You gon' ride in the Jag, yeah, With dad, yeah ♪
♪ You could smoke or buy a bag, yeah ♪ Of grass, yeah ♪
♪ Got money I confess, yeah And trash, yeah ♪
♪ I'm a big time... ♪
The beat was a bounce beat,
but what made "Back That Azz Up" different was it had structure to it.
It had a chorus, it had a bridge.
I started incorporating more music to these beats.
The top part of it was classical music.
At that moment, hip-hop was going crazy,
because nobody was doing where the song broke down,
and there was this part for these girls to go nuts.
♪ Drop it like it's hot, Drop-drop it like it's hot ♪
All of that won it over.
It crossed over to both worlds.
♪ A nigga do a trick, yeah, On the dick, yeah ♪
♪ You claiming you want a bitch, yeah, That ain't shit, yeah ♪
♪ The nigga with the money, yeah, Don't act funny, yeah ♪
♪ Got birds and I'm running, yeah, 'Bout a hundred, yeah ♪
I was like, "Holy shit."
"Back That Azz Up" was rapping over more of a bounce beat.
Like, we got one that's gonna put the limelight on New Orleans,
and repping the sound of New Orleans.
"Back That Azz Up" showed them twerking, you know.
They took it out. They took it more nationwide.
From it being local to now everybody knew about this.
When Juvie came through, it was something fresh,
it was something new, it was something that nobody else was doing.
He just had an original vibe.
It was awesome!
I'm a girl, nigga, and I went and bought that fucking CD!
♪ Call me big daddy when you Back that ass up ♪
♪ Girl who is you playing with? Back that ass up ♪
♪ Girl you looks good, won't you Back that ass up? ♪
♪ You's a fine motherfucker, won't you Back that ass up? ♪
♪ Do the ladies rule this mother? ♪
♪ Hell yeah! ♪
♪ Do the fellas rule this mother? ♪
♪ Hell yeah! ♪
Everything after that
was certified platinum record from Cash Money.
It's one of the longest lasting labels that's been around.
That's their legacy.
I'm proud of them.
I'm happy for them that they went on their own.
I think it was a good time for New Orleans,
so where we were the first and they came right behind us.
It showed the world what we were about,
what we stood for,
the pain, the struggle, the hustle.
It represented the culture.
♪ Cash Money ♪
♪ We making that money ♪
♪ Cash Money ♪
♪ Nothing is funny ♪
♪ Cash Money ♪
♪ Ol' baby gave me the game ♪
♪ Cash Money ♪
♪ Ol' bubba gave me the game ♪
♪ Cash Money ♪
♪ You better recognize the name ♪
♪ Cash Money ♪
♪ We came, now the fuckin' fame ♪
♪ Cash Money ♪
Luke Records, Rap-A-Lot, LaFace.
Until New Orleans came along,
these were the labels that defined the South,
but the countless platinum plaques
that No Limit and Cash Money stacked were unparalleled.
And, more importantly, the deals they made as independents
redefined how success was measured in hip-hop.
It was yet another milestone for the South,
and further proof that by drawing on their own history,
the South could keep bending the contours of hip-hop.
And, that's exactly what they were going to do.