How Cash Money Records Pulled Of Hip-Hop’s Louisiana Purchase

Everybody’s got something to say about Cash Money Records and the brothers who co-founded the label —Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams. To paint the full Cash Money full picture, good and bad, I brought on Zack O’Malley Greenberg who has interviewed the brothers at-length while working at Forbes.

Cash Money has one of the deepest catalogs in the game with several classics. And unlike some other upstart hip-hop labels, Birdman and Slim maintained control as they rose up. Their 1998 distribution deal with Universal is hip-hop’s Louisiana Purchase.But we can’t ignore Cash Money’s lows either. There is a long, long list of artists who claim they were not compensated fairly by Birdman and Slim.

Zack and I go through 30 years of Cash Money as business, its competitive advantage, and what comes next now that Drake and Wayne are gone from the label.

1:30 Is Cash Money the greatest hip-hop record label of all time?
8:17 What people sleep on about Cash Money
11:01 Cash Money’s history of not paying artists
17:55 Did Cash Money succeed because of Birdman and Slim or despite them?
21:00 Biggest signing?
22:16 The 1998 Universal-Cash Money deal
28:05 Lil Wayne’s mixtape run
30:40 The benefit of partnering with Republic Records
34:20 Bidding wars for Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj
36:53 Connection with New Jack City
41:24 Cash Money catalog valuation?
47:12 Lil Wayne’s beef with Birdman
49:32 Can Cash Money strike platinum again?
56:30 Birdman’s love for music
1:01:38 Hopes for a Cash Money reunion tour and biopic
1:03:49 Who “won” the most in Cash Money history?

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