The Cash Money & No Limit Tour kicks off today, and we had Juvenile and B.G. stop by the Billboard offices in New York City recently to talk about how this New Orleans rap dream tour came about.
By the time Juvenile shook up the game with the song and music video for “Ha,” B.G.’s sophomore album Chopper City was already considered a classic in New Orleans and surrounding areas. However, here up north, seeing that video was the first time we had ever heard of this particular version of Cash Money (see: New Jack City.) My friends and I were mesmerized by the raw cinematography we watched as we were hearing this dude from down south asking us question after question. There was something about Juvie’s delivery that was different from anything else in the game at that particular moment in time.
Cash Money took rap by storm after that music video hit MTV and BET. All of a sudden, we were rockin’ crisp white tees and Girbaud jeans over our white on white Nike Air Force 1s, and incorporating “bling” into our lexicon, which was funny because there was another New Orleans clique on scene in No Limit who were also churning out hit sin their own right. This is why you really can’t listen to people that say most of the New York City area had some type of bias when it came to Southern rap. Cash Money, No Limit, and Rap-A-Lot were getting plenty of play in the North Jersey neighborhood I grew up in.
Both B.G. and Juvie have a natural chemistry that’s apparent in the interview you’re about to read. They’ve been friends and collaborators going on three decades now and continue to work on new music together. They’ve floated the idea of a collab album and have a bunch of stuff already in the bank, but first they want to get out something that will also feature another fellow Louisiana native.
“We were supposed to do the Magnolia Landlords with me, him and Boosie, but I got caught up and I don’t like to put anything out,” Juvenile said after I asked if they have anything in the works. B.G. then added that they’ve been busy in the studio and that his legal issues are finally behind him. “We sitting on a gang of records. I’m talking about crack rock too,” he said. “The legal stuff behind me. I ain’t on paper no more. I’m a free man, so I can do what I want when I want. I can be Gizzle.”
Check out our conversation below.
Let’s talk about this tour. You guys did the Verzuz with No Limit, and now you’re going on tour with them. Was the response to the Verzuz the catalyst for the tour?
Juvenile: Definitely. I mean, when we was doing it, we were saying this probably could turn into something else if it goes great. But the fact that we’re able to go out and and do the Verzuz and do a tour, I think that’s something that we should all behold too. That’s a blessing right there.
B.G. how’s that been for you? You came home, moved to Vegas, you just dropped an album. You got right back into the mix, man.
B.G.: To do 12 and a half years and come back and have another shot at it — it’s a real blessing. People don’t do as much time as I did and remain relevant in this game. To be snatched off the streets in my prime, and do 12 years and come home and people still want to hear from you, still have a fanbase that truly f—k you, lets you know that you made timeless music and connected with the people in a way that’s just priceless, you know what I mean? And then not to mention, I got brothers that are legends that remained relevant the whole time that I was gone — so it was kind of easy for me to come back and get off into it and piggyback off what they already was doing. Still holding it down and representing.
Were you were you like when you performed now like the first time you performed after coming home and all that were you like nervous?
B.G.: My first show was the Essence Festival. When I came home, they had tried to violate me.
For lyrics and all that stuff, right? As if you were a mob boss.
B.G.: Man, they was on my trail, man. But I fought it, and I went to court and the judge ruled in my favor, and I was able to get back into it. And the timing just was so perfect, because once they gave me permission to rap again, it was right before Essence Fest.
That’s home, so you felt comfortable.
B.G.: Yeah, yeah, and the first concert was at Essence was sold out, like 40,000-plus. I was really excited. That was the moment that I had been waiting for. To get back on stage after all that time and see what the response was gonna be like? Man, it was incredible.
I’m from the East Coast, right? North Jersey to be exact. And I’ve always wanted to ask, and I’m sure you guys probably have talked about this before, but the rise of Cash Money and No Limit kind of happened at the same time. So, was there like a rivalry in the city? Was it a friendly one? Was it more of a personal thing? Was there some things for you guys to get over to be able to make the Verzuz and tour happen 20-30 years later?
J: I would say a little bit of both, because a lot of the cats in No Limit, we friends with them, right? So, it ain’t really no rivalry to the point where we try to hurt each other on some beef stuff. But do you want to do better and outdo… really, not just them, we was competitive against everybody to be honest. We were trying to outdo everybody.
B.G.: Nah, facts.
J: I think it was more like checking to see how many records they sold first week versus what we did. Stuff like that. There was always a little bit something there, but not nothing major like that.
B.G.: Back then it was a lot of street politics involved too, right? Because we was representing the Magnolia and the 13 and this side uptown, and they was representing the Callio. It was our entourages that basically had beef. Mac, Fiend, them were our homies for real. And then our CEOs really was, you know, ego trippin’. Like he said, it was a competitive thing, man — because I think they got they deal before we got our deal, right? We was looking at what they was doing.
J: Definitely watching what they were doing.
B.G.: And once we got our shot and our whole thing was good, now it’s our turn to put on for the city.
You guys were already poppin’ in New Orleans when Master P and No Limit got their deals, right? You were selling a bunch of records.
J: We pretty much had New Orleans. We were poppin’ in New Orleans a little bit before the whole No Limit thing took off.
B.G.: Absolutely.
J: They got the deal before us. But as for as being poppin’ in New Orleans? It wasn’t just there. We had the whole Southern region.
Like how? Selling mixtapes?
B.G.: Nah, albums. We were dropping full albums.
J: We were the only ones who didn’t put singles out, because we would make you go buy our whole album.
So, how were people able to get those albums?
B.G.: They was going to stores.
You guys were were taking the stock and going to record stores door to door?
J: We had distributor named Southwest [who] distributed throughout the South. So, every week we would load up.
B.G.: We had U-Haul trucks [Laughs.]
J: We would bring the boxes to to him, and he would distribute. We was getting around because of that. We had a larger range than the average label.
Word, okay. Because back in the day motherf—kers tell stories about how they had a trunk full of CDs and tapes.
B.G.: I mean, we played that game too, right?
J: I actually did that.
Early on, right?
J: That was before I was with Cash Money. I was in the trunk for real.
Do you remember what album you were selling?
J: Oh, it wasn’t an album. It was “Bounce (For the Juvenile).” That was one long song. Back in the days, we would go to the club and record right there live. So, I had a little live thing I did at Newton’s, and the dude who DJ’d for me was DJ Pee Wee, and I think I went for like 15 minutes. Something like that. You know, chatting with the crowd and stuff like that with my little stories and my little rhymes and what you would call bounce music.
So, real hip-hop s—t with the crowd call-and-response. Then you recorded that, put that on tape, and sold it?
J: Yeah, exactly. I’m talking about every car passing. Every car. Not some of the cars. If you ain’t playing it, you might as well park.
B.G.: This was ’92?
J: Man, stop talkin’ about the year. [Laughs.]
I was listening to the first Chopper City and that came out in ’96. You were like 15-16 when you made that.
B.G.: Yeah, I was 15.
J: Let me tell you a story. When Chopper City came out, that’s the first album I was on. That’s when I first got to Cash Money. His album was really pretty much through when I got there, but he had a song that he put me and Bun B on. I knew Bun B from hearing him on “Pocket Full of Stones,” but I didn’t know how he looked in person. So, I’m riding through for two or three days and I said, “Bun B? The king of the underground?” That n—a looked at me, and I said, “Tell me you ain’t Bun B from UGK,” he said, “Yeah,” and I said, “N—a, you been around me for three days, man.”
B.G.: He jumped on that record and stole that junk. “Scraped my elbow, jumping the fence, creeping through the…I was like, “Whoa!”
J: That was one of the 10 verses I had. I threw all of them out there.
B.G.: Nah, you smoked that, I ain’t even gonna lie.
B.G.’s credited as one of the earliest members of Cash Money, so how did you eventually link up with them?
J: Well, really my guys who they had over there, U.N.L.V. Yaphet used to always tell them about me. Yaphat use to always coming to the projects, we used to have little rap sessions and s—t. I had already been in the deal when I was younger, I was probably like 14 or 15, and motherf—ker f—ked me over. Warlock Records to be exact, out here in New York. They kinda played me, so I was going through that cycle of trying to recover, but still writing, doing a little rapping, but not as much as I was doing at first. S
o, dude used to always come around like, “Man, nah, bro, I’m telling you, you need to get back into this s—t. You, better than everybody.” And I’m like, “Yeah, man, yeah, yeah. I ain’t trying to get back to that s—t.” He used to always tell me about them and I used to watch them put their s—t out. They dropped an album called Uptown 4 Life and I heard them beats.
Them Mannie Fresh beats.
J: That’s when my antennas went up. Then they dropped B.G.’s first album. When did True Story came out?
B.G.: ’94 or ’95.
J: I was listening to them beats and then when I actually got in the studio with y’all, and I heard them b–ches.
B.G.: Live and up close
J: I told bro, “This what I was missing right here.” I ain’t have this kind of s—t. The studio too. It’s the first real studio I’ve been in. All that s—t convinced me that I was ready to do that s—t. Then you kept droppin’.
B.G.: But I ain’t gonna lie, I was telling Baby, like… because, you know, the things had broke up between U.N.L.V., and it was just me. And we was making that transition from being like a gangsta bounce label to a hip-hop label, you know what I’m saying? Once I heard you, I was like, “Man, Baby, we need him. You gotta get him.”
J: I appreciate that.
B.G.: Once you came on board, it was over.
J: Yeah, the squad was built. That s—t crazy.
How did you get on so early?
B.G.: My mama had a relationship with with Baby and Slim from like the ’80s, before they even started the label, when they were still in the streets or whatever. I’ve been knowing them since I was like eight, nine, 10 years old or whatever, and once I picked up my pen and started writing and stuff, they had already started the label. They had been put out a bunch of records, like PxMxW and Ms. Tee and Lil Slim, a bunch of artists that I used to be bumping their cassettes in the hood. They was from around the way, they was from around the block. They was dudes that we looked up to as youngsters, because they was the neighborhood dope boys coming through in the fly rides and just doing their thing. Once he found out I rap, the rest is history.
That’s when they gave you the name “Baby Gangsta?”
B.G.: Yeah, because I was going under Lil Doogie at first, right? And me and Wayne had formed a group called the B.G.’z, which was the Baby Gangstas. Then Wayne’s father, rest in peace, ended up pulling him out of the group, and he wanted to start a label on his own, and put his money behind Wayne. So, we dropped the “Z,” and just was like, “Man, we gonna call you B.G.” That’s where that originally came from.
When I first heard of you guys — and this is the probably the case for the majority of the East Coast, especially up north — was when that “Ha” video dropped. I feel like that s—t just set everything on fire.
B.G.: Facts.
Was it the same for you guys? I felt like you guys were out of here on a national level after that video dropped.
J: I ain’t gonna lie, we was popping so hard from the projects we dropped before that.
B.G.: Right, from the Solja Rags, Chopper City.
Was that in the South or like multiple places? I’m talking about up north.
B.G.: Nah, “Ha” put us on the map.
J: It did put us on the map up north, and when Jay-Z jumped on the remix it really took off.
The “Ha” video blew our minds. The cinematography, the white tees, the soldier rags, the flow. It showed us how life looked in Magnolia. Southern rap didn’t sound like that at the time.
B.G.: It was raw, rough and rugged. That’s how we was rockin’.
J: A lot of people on the East Coast in the beginning was saying it wasn’t hip-hop. “He’s not even rappin’.”
It went over people’s heads, man. We f—ked with No Limit but when that dropped we was Cash Money. We picked a side.
J: The thing about “Ha” was that it was really a follow up of “Solja Rag” that was on my first album. So, if you listen to the hook, it’s a line out of “Solja Rag.” So, the idea was to play third person, right? It’s kinda like asking you a question but telling you something at the same time. “You a paper chaser? You got the block on fire? Remaining a G,” I’m telling you and I’m asking you at the same time. That’s what “Ha” is. The whole thing was not to make the song about me, it was to make the song about you.
When I went in there to do “Ha,” I already kinda had a cheat sheet because of “Solja Rag.” Let me keep it real with you. When we got the deal with Universal, they liked “Solja Rag” so much, they actually put it on the 400 Degreez album. They wanted me to remake that song in some kind of way, and that was my way of trying to remake it, not knowing it was gonna be a success or not, because I just hated to do songs over. I hated to do that.
How did you feel after it popped off?
J: I’m happy about it now. I didn’t realize the world hadn’t heard “Solja Rag.”
So, how did Jay end up on the remix?
J: He just got on it.
On some mixtape s—t.
J: Not even. He got on it and he sent it to us.
I remember hearing it first on mixtapes.
J: So, I’m a fan, right? And me and Mannie in there with Slim and them telling them like, “Man, this n—a Jay just put us on. N—a, we straight. He just threw us the alley-oop.”
B.G.: And that joint was already double platinum at this time, I think.
J: No, no, no.
B.G.: It wasn’t?
J: It was on radio.
B.G.: But then we re-released the album with them extra three singles.
J: But the album was doing good, but it didn’t really start hitting dramatic sales till “Back That Azz Up.”
B.G.: Alright, alright.
J: “Ha” did good, “Follow Me Now” did good…
B.G. “Back That Azz Up” came after “Follow Me Now”?
J: It was the last one. Remember, I was the one fighting. I kept fighting it.
You didn’t want them to drop that as a single?
J: Because I came from that kind of music, so I didn’t want my success story to be written off a booty shaking music, not thinking that my success is written off booty-shaking music. [Laughs.]
I mean, people don’t dance anymore like they used to, but back in my day, when that beat starts? Everyone leaves the line to the bar, the bathroom, whatever to hit the dance floor and try to catch a dub to that.
B.G.: That’s one of them ones right there.
My friends and I were trying to think back if we bought the album after we saw the “Ha” video or after “Back That Azz Up.” I think I bought it when “Back That Azz Up” dropped. I realized 400 Degreez had hits all over that motherf—ker. I had to go get that s—t.
B.G.: You pop that joint in and let it ride.
Did you feel the love up north after that Jay remix dropped?
J: Oh, definitely.
You guys ended up coming out here to perform at The Tunnel.
J: There was so much love., it went from me coming here to chill and walk around to not being able to walk around at all. So, it changed.
People recognized you.
J: Recognize? S—t, they recognized me to the fullest as soon as I touched down.
That “Ha” video influenced fashion too. I feel like you guys are underrated in that regard. We started wearing fresh white tees because of that video.
J: I always say West Coast.
Yeah, that’s fair.
J: But as far as New Orleans goes, I’m always gonna say Magnolia Slim. I remember when Slim, for his first mixtape, he came up with this whole idea of wearing white T-shirts, Reeboks, and it stuck. All this was his idea. Everybody couldn’t afford to go get a brand new outfit, so, we used to have Dickies on (this was before Girbauds,) the Solja Reeboks, a white T-shirt and everybody had a fresh cut. Slim used to cut hair, and I used to cut hair, so we both used to cut damn near everybody’s hair.
The Reeboks didn’t stick up north. Explain the Reebok thing to me.
J: It was a Magnolia Slim thing, it was a G-code thing, and then the whole city took on to it. Everybody took on to it.
B.G.: I remember Slim had a concert and would tell the crowd, “Aye, man, if you got Soldiers on take one off shoe and put it in the air.” The whole club would have one Reebok in the air. Oh yeah, like man, you gotta put your soldiers on, man. Take your shoe off, man.
J: Oh yeah, socks be dirtier than a motherf—ker.
B.G.: We was actually supposed to be the first ones with a Reebok deal. Before G-Unit, before Jay, before all of ’em.
J: Shaq, you can change it. I’ll still take a Reebok deal.
B.G.: A.I. too.
Did Magnolia Slim also start the trend of the solja rag tied around the neck? You use to rock that a lot too.
J: Slim started a lot — but look, my name on one of the first Solja songs, so I got a right to say that. I’m on the first one. I’ve been rocking a camouflage from day one with him.
I wanted to talk about Baller Blockin’ too, because we used to watch that s—t a lot. Do you remember filming that? How fun was it?
J: That s—t was in the projects, I can’t help but remember. Everybody was mad, “How long y’all gonna be shooting this s—t?”
I still randomly ask, “Who’s the baller now, wardie?”
B.G.: [Laughs.] We had a blast shooting that movie, though, man. We was on tour and shooting the movie at the same time.
You guys were on top of the world during that time. Y’all could’ve done anything.
J: We didn’t read s—t off the script, we just freestyled that motherf—ker.
B.G.: Yeah, we freestyled that motherf—ker, man.
J: Had no acting coaches or nothing.
B.G.: Nothing, ya heard me? Raw and uncut.
J: The funny part about it was a lot of s—t that was going on in the movie, was real s—t going on around that bitch. It was crazy, man. We had an actual criminal in the movie, playing a criminal. We had to take that n—a out the movie because he wound up getting in a shootout.
As far as the tour with No Limit is concerned, what are you guys looking forward to and what do you guys have planned that you can give away?
B.G.: It’s not gonna be a concert, man. It’s gonna be an event.
J: Exactly.
B.G.: We looking to give y’all the experience.
J: It’s a celebration, man. We’re not gonna be beefed out, mad at the world, mad at other people.
B.G.: It’s gonna be fun.
J: You wanna come to our concert and have fun, ’cause that’s what we plan on doing. Come with your s—t on.
