...really givin a fuck about the money, cause a nigga was already straight with money. I didn't wanna lose my artists cause my artists is more than just business. We got like a family relationship with everybody. I woulda rather keep my 100% and they could keep their fuckin money. All them other companies was tryin to jack a nigga, wanted to buy into a nigga's shit. I wasn't tryin to give up shit as far as my artists was concerned. I woulda bent on the money part, cause a nigga wasn't really trippin on the money. Uni said: fuck it,we'll give y'all 3O and let y'all keep your shit. That passed. Cash Money has been major in the South for a long time. A lot of people out there don't realize how long you've been at it. Baby: We been doin this shit 7 years-30 albums. My homeboy Manny Fresh Fresh did over 400 tracks in the last 7 years. Our fanbase basically been the streets, we just fuck with the streettype shit. We cover a lotta areas, butwe haven't got to that part of the clouds yet. In a minute we gonna shake that muthafucka. They gonna know us. They gonna feel us. A nigga gonna back track on all the shit we done did. We got 30 albums, we got a catalogue. We gave Uni like 5 or 6 albums. In a minute niggaz is gonna know what's happening. Our new shit is just so fat, it's all gravy. Didn't Cash Money start off putting out Bounce music? Baby: We had Bounce groups up until the BG. I wouldn't consider it bounce, it was just the way Fresh trend-setted the music. We had Bounce groups, but niggaz was kickin lyrics. BG really came with that raw Gangsta shit. Niggaz was feelin' it even more when Fresh was droppin his law, doin what he do. We got a powerful producer. That nigga's a muthafucka. My dog Fresh be layin his law. And the way we spit, the shit we talk. You got these niggas with a budget of like a million dollars, our budget as an independent was about a hundred thousand. I'm pushin like a 150,000. My first week I'd ship 80,000 independently. These niggaz signed to major labels would ship like 300,000, but our fucker'd hit Billboard higher than them. That made us feel good as a company cause we was up against a lotta shit. If I'm coverin that kinda weight independently, majorly I'm touchin #1 all around the clock. You're going to keep the same flavor you've been coming with? Baby:I wouldn't never change. We're gonna still talk that uptown shit, the Gangsta shit-toatin, ridin, flyin, nigga's drinkin till they drop-you know that typa Gangsta raw shit that we do, the way we live. What we say we got, we got. A nigga say we got a Benz, we gotta Benz. That's why muthafuckas feel us so much, cause the shit we talk, we can back it up. When you first started Cash Money, what was going on in New Orleans with Rap? Baby: It was basically that Bounce. The Gangsta shit was there, but we wasn't really into it at that time. It seems like the Cash Money sound is that Bounce beatwith the Gangsta lyrics over it. Manny Fresh Fresh: For sure, the Bounce shit, we're goin to the groove. You think of Gangsta shit as some shit you could ride to, some shit you could smoke to. Our shit, you get your groove on with it. It's gonna keep the party knockin. Partyshit. Club type shit. Poppin, makin them hoes shake their money maker-that'sall that shit's about. Makin a nigga act their ass off, that type of shit. When you first started, were you doing Bounce or Rap music? Manny Fresh: I did it all. I been doin this shit like 13 years. When I started it was like some Miami Bass type shit. Then I went into this Bounce shit,that's our thing. It's always been 808 type shit. We just elevated what was goin on. That's what we're gonna keep doin. Change with the times. At first our scene was Bounce then our scene went hardcore, we went with it. Baby: See, we ain't scared to try shit. We feel so confident about it. When you have a certain amount of confidence, you stand a very high chance of being successful. And when we do our shit we do it for the streets. We know we gotthis covered, so we gonna go with that and let everybody come around and accept us. We done bein trend setters, we creators man. We gonna change this game. To each his own and there's enough bread out here for everybody, but the bread we want, I don't think nobody ever saw it yet. So many labels come and go, I wonder what kept you going all these years? Baby: It's just dedication, that's our heart-niggaz put their whole life into this shit. Niggaz do their little side hustle with this game, niggaz start labels. Niggaz gotta eatthe way they eat, but for us this was our only meal. We ain't sellin tapes we ain't eatin. Even through the ups and downs and all the struggles, we just kept it real, and kept doin what we do. A nigga was able to come from under, a lotta stress, and this shitjust happened. From the beginning were you rapping or were you just managing the business with your brother Ron (Slim)? Baby: I don't even consider myself as a rapper. It was just something we did cause we would be so into our artists' lyrics, and Manny Fresh Fresh just said: Fuck it! We're gonna game spit. We don't know how to rap, but we know how to game spit. When did the Big Tymers begin as a group? Baby:We started on BGs shit, since Chopper City. It's been 2 or 3 years. Catchin verses on all BG's shit. We don't like an artist to do all the muthafuckin songs-start all the songs and do all the choruses-and wasn't nothing there but me and Fresh, so we just rolled with it and started poppin off. Big Tymers is just you two-Manny Fresh Fresh and Baby? Manny Fresh: Yeah, but you're gonna hear the voices from our clique on there. Everything that we put out, our family gonna be on it. Plus with the camp that we got, we don't feel that we need to go outside our camp. Baby: We don't need nobody. Some niggaz got like 30 different niggaz on their album, that's something that we'll never do. If it ain't CM artist, you ain't gonna hear nobody. We ain't doin what the next nigga do. If a nigga got 20 niggaz on their album, we ain't tryin to follow that. We'll do our own thing. You ain't gonna hear no extra niggaz on our shit. The only exception is Bun B (UGK).... If you want to read this entire article as well as the Hot Boys article, backorder this magazine: Murder Dog, Vol. 5, No. 5 Interview by: Ted Williams and Black Dog Bone Photos by: Jason LaMotte