Bryan 'Birdman' Williams and Ronald 'Slim' Williams found Cash Money Records

Why it matters

Bryan "Birdman" Williams and his older brother Ronald "Slim" Williams founded Cash Money Records in 1991 in New Orleans. They started with $15,000 and a Magnolia Projects-based network of producers and rappers. For the first six years of its existence Cash Money was a regional label putting out regional records (the Hot Boys, Big Tymers, B.G., Juvenile, a teenage Lil Wayne) that the rest of the country had not heard. Then in 1998 Birdman cut a distribution deal with Universal that included a reported $30 million advance and a 50/50 ownership split on masters, which were terms basically nobody in rap had ever gotten from a major. The deal made Cash Money one of the most commercially significant labels of the 2000s. Without it, Juvenile's 400 Degreez does not go quadruple platinum. Without it, Lil Wayne does not have the resources to become the most prolific rapper of the early 2000s. Without it, the Drake-Nicki-Wayne post-2009 takeover does not exist in the form it took. You can argue with Birdman's accounting practices; many of his artists have. You cannot argue with the deal that made the catalog possible. He pulled it off.