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! BG Bio !
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Long before his Cash Money brethren the Big Tymers and Juvenile hit the national spotlight with their stunning LPs, B.G. (AKA Baby Gangsta) was tearing up the regional charts with his poignant lyrics and awesome flow that move all who hear him for the first time. Although very few people outside of the Deep South and Midwest had heard of Baby Gangsta prior to his performance on Juvenile's platinum-selling 400 Degreez, make no mistake about it, B.G. is a seasoned veteran-a bonafide supernova set to explode on the national scene.
Born in the infamous Uptown section of New Orleans, Baby Gangsta acquired his moniker because of his reputation for doing dirt at a very early age. According to the 17-year old rap artist, his trouble are largely due to the loss of his father and his environment-one of the poorest, most dangerous urban areas in the nation. "Being from the ghetto, you get caught up sometimes," explains B.G. "I was out there acting up and doing stuff that I had no business doing-like going to jail for ditching school and breaking curfew."
B.G.'s love and appreciation for rap music eventually led him to writing and reciting rhymes. "In junior high school, I would be in the hallway giving little mini-concerts, or just writing rhymes whenever and wherever?" offers B.G. "I just knew I had it in me to make it in the rap game."
So did Ronald "Slim" Williams and his brother Bryan "Baby" Williams, the owners of Cash Money Records who signed B.G. at the tender age of eleven-years old. In no time, B.G. went from being an unknown local rapper with a reputation for rowdiness to being one of the region's most prolific rhymers. His debut LP, the eerie semi-autobiographical True Story created a major stir in his home town, easily outselling big name acts two to one regionally. The album established the young lyricist as the heir apparent to hard-core reality-based rappers.
He followed that up with his equally stunning sophomore album, Chopper City, which sold over 100,000 units, but it wasn't until he dropped It's All On You Volumes I & II that the name B.G. began to ring around the nation's underground. Both volumes sold over 250,000 apiece. As a member of the Hot Boys, an all-star hip-hop dream team featuring Juvenile, Lil Wayne and Young Turk, he furthered his status as a regional superstar with an album titled, Get It How U Live. So popular is B.G., that his classic hits "Uptown Thang" and the sparkling baller's anthem "Get Your Shine On" can still move the crowd in any club down South or in the Midwest.
Now, with Cash Money's association with Universal Records, B.G. is set to explode in the national scene with his fourth solo album, Chopper City In The Ghetto. Produced by the up & coming Mannie Fresh, Chopper City In The Ghetto takes the listener on a whirl-wind tour through the rough and tumble terrain that is B.G.'s home -New Orleans' Uptown section (AKA Chopper City). "Chopper City is another word for an AK-47 assault rifle," explains B.G. The AK-47 can be analogous to B.G.'s lyrical style and flow which comes off with a force so deadly and so precise that there is no way to ignore it's impact. On the eeriely anthemic lead single, "Cash Money Is An Army" B.G. spits venomous lyrics amped by Mannie's moog-induced bass-line and a tight bounce-inspired beat.
Indeed, B.G.'s Chopper City In The Ghetto packs enough rounds to ensure a rapid-fire secession of hits throughout the Spring and Summer, making B.G. and the Cash Money clique the soldiers to watch in 1999; or as B.G. puts it, "We're coming in the rap game knocking thangs down, so you either gotta roll with us or get rolled over."
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! JUVINILE BIO ! (GOD BLESS LIL'WAYNE)
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Don't let the name fool you. Cash Money Records' latest superstar Juvenile, is a hot rapper with more than ten years experience of ripping shows, dropping cold-as-ice lyrics and laying it down for "Uptown" New Orleans. "Juvenile is a name I got when I was young and thugging," explains 23-year-old Terius Gray.
Juvenile hails from the infamous New Orleans Uptown region and was reared in the Magnolia projects. Like some other housing projects, the Magnolia projects have a serious reputation for being rowdy and wild. It's a place where few children survive unscathed by the horrendous poverty that grips many of the residents there. But not Juve. Like the elders of old, he kept his eyes on the prize - his dream of being a rap star. "I had my struggles," says a solemn Juvenile when asked about life in the "wild" Magnolia. "My pops went AWOL on me when I was four, so I had my struggles and I had peer pressure, but I didn't let things get to me. I always stayed focused on what I was trying to do."
Rapping since the age of ten, Juvenile formed a group called the UTP, a name that he has tattooed on his stomach in honor of his old Uptown crew, many of whom are either dead or locked up. "UTP was like a coalition for Uptown rappers." Through his rap activity, Juvenile became instrumental in helping shape New Orleans' hip hop scene. However, by the mid-90's, Juvenile's career took a turn for the worst.
Resisting the lure of fast money and cars, he took on a series of odd jobs in between writing and doing shows whenever he could. His luck changed when he met Ronald "Suga Slim" Williams and his brother Brian "Baby" Williams, owners of Cash Money Records. On the way to work, he auditioned for them on the spot. Although the brothers liked what they heard, they didn't have a spot on their roster for new artists. They gave him a card and told him to check with them later. Juvenile showed up the next day, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after that. In fact, he started hanging around the studio so much that the label finally gave him a shot and released Juvenile's debut album titled Solja Rag. Instantly, Solja Rag became an underground smash, selling close to 200,000 copies in the Southern region alone. It also helped to set the stage for Juvenile's new group, The Hot Boys, whose debut LP Get It How You Live sold nearly 400,000 copies and landed in the #25 spot on the Billboard charts.
Now, Juvenile returns with his sophomore solo CD 400 Degreez, which will definitely prove to be Cash Money's hottest release yet. Just listen to the sizzling lead single "HA," with its rapid-fire rhythm, spacey keyboard and Juvenile's endless aggression on the mic. Everyone is sure to get caught up in the high energy of "Welcome To Magnolia" with it's bouncing organ chords and tight rhythms built around a 70's rim shot, or the spine-chilling tracks "My Nine Is Gonna Die With Me" and "Back Dat Azz Up." On "Run For It," you can feel the hunger in Juvenile's voice and the heat coming from producer Mannie Fresh's tracks.
Why 400 Degreez? Let Juvenile explain. "The area I come from, they call it the 'hot block; when the police come, they draw heat.' And I'm a hot boy so that 400 Degreez was perfect because that is the boiling point." Besides, given the amount of bubbling bass lines, steamy rhythms and scorching lyrical content that this CD packs, the album couldn't be called anything else.
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! BIG TYMERS BIO !
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New Orleans hip-hop has its own unique flavor steeped in the city's rich musical tradition. It blends both the traditional sounds and styles of jazz, second-line (a form of Brass jazz played at funerals), zydeco, and a smattering of gospel with more modern sounds of funk, old school hip-hop, dancehall reggae and New Orleans' bounce music. Add to that a milky pimp-like flow spiced with New Orleans' distinct drawl and street slang and what you have are Cash Money Records Mannie Fresh and Brian "Baby" Williams, the duo that comprise BigTymers.
In 1992, "Baby" and his enterprising brother Ron "Sugar Slim" Williams started their own label Cash Money Records and launched several successful underground rap acts such as the Hot Boys, Juvenile, UNLV and B.G. The Baby Gangsta. Around the time that the brothers started Cash Money, Baby met Mannie Fresh when they ran into each other at a mutual friend's house. "When I found out that Baby did music, I thought 'maybe we can work together and pull something off' and it's been all gravy since then," says Mannie, whose early group Gregory D and Mannie Fresh was a major part of New Orleans' old school hip-hop.
Mannie teamed up with the Cash Money brothers and the label became one of the hottest hit-making machines in the South. With Baby and Sugar Slim at the helm of the business end, and Mannie holding down the production side, the three young men are the guiding force turning young talents on the Cash Money roster into underground superstars. Not content to just handle the "business" of running a label, Brian occasionally offered his spirited ad lib (he calls it "game spitting") with Mannie on all Cash Money artists' albums. But a guest performance on the Hot Boys underground classic LP Get It How You Live created such a buzz on the street that the two hit the studio and became artists. Thus, the BigTymers were born.
"It wasn't nothing we planned," says Baby, who in addition to being a sound business man also admits to being quite a ladies man. "We were just dropping verses and doing the intro on BG's tape and everybody else's tape and people kept asking us when we was gonna come out so me and Fresh just went at it."
The result of their collaboration was the BigTymer's 1998 debut album How U Luv That, an album that literally rocked the South and Midwest selling over 100,000 units without the benefit of major radio or video airplay. How U Luv That is now being re-released nationally with nine brand new songs. Produced by the irrepressible Mannie Fresh, How U Luv That offers the listener a serious dose of live instrumentation, tight beats, bubbling basslines and sparkling keyboards. Included in this revised set is the banging new single "Stun'n," a powerful up-tempo track; the beat intensive "Tear It Up" featuring the Hot Boyz; and the blazing title track, which along with the rest of the album is bound to get heads open to a new flavor coming out of New Orleans.
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