...have been chilling in the hotel lobby for a good half-hour, waiting to head off to an autograph signing session that's just one stop on a promo tour that will take them through the South. Juvenile squints. "Y'all from where?" "Connecticut. My kids all love Cash Money Records, Will Smith, Snoop Doggy, the Big Man..." "You mean Notorious B.I.G.?" "Yeah, him. I get the names mixed up. But they all love you guys. Whenever we put Juvenile's song on, my one-year-old starts just rocking and bouncing to the music." She laughs. Juvenile smiles. The Hot Boys' Lil' Wayne, seated on the opposing couch, chuckles and takes the poster from Juvenile. No one present-Juvenile, Lil' Wayne or their sinewy road manager, Duck-should be surprised that white folks want their autographs. This is, after all, the year mainstream music, blind- sided by hip-hoes overwhelming presence, stopped worrying and accepted musical miscegenation. After calling it out of its name (trip-hop, electronics, etc.), reheating it (Backstreet Boys doing New Edition 10 years later) and raiding its attic (all those nouveau swing kids perpetrating mid-century Afro-urban chic while laying claim to Ellington), pop culture finally learned to say "Black music" without stammering. New Orleans-based Cash Money, led by brothers and co-CEOs Ron "Suga Slim' and Brian "Baby' Williams, is poised to enter the conversation, courtesy of a $30 million distribution deal with Universal and an underground following that seems to establish new outposts daily. Still, the whole scenario causes a couple of furtive "what is this shit?" glances. We all know hip-hop has infiltrated the northern suburbs; that's old news. So is the burbs' acceptance of southern hip-hop. But southern underground? That's Memphis, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia. Connecticut? Oh, hell naw. Juvenile signs the poster and hands it back as Mr. Roth arrives back from check-in. Smiles and waves trail off as the couple heads to the elevator. Juvenile strokes his chin, pondering the significance of the episode. "Huh. Maybe we need to start going to Connecticut." Though he has the compact build of a former athlete (which he is), Brian's caesar cut is flecked with gray. If he let it grow out, he would look at least a decade past his 25 years. He's the "grinder" in the partnership--the one who works the street and "makes sure all our shit is tight," he says. Twenty-nine year-old Ron stands a rubbery 6-foot-8, the decision maker in the partnership. His moves and gestures are deliberate, his demeanor an almost detached level of cool. Right now, he sits in the seat Juvenile has recently vacated and waves a fan-sized hand, discounting one of the southern scene's juiciest rumors. Here's how it goes: When Cash Money began considering offers for major label distribution, one of their highest profile suitors was Priority Records. Priority, everybody knows, distributes the majority of Master P's No Limit material. Word has it that P threatened to jump ship if Priority inked No Limit's in-state rivals. Artists on both labels have New Orleans indie-label ties. Cash Money producer Mannie Fresh knows Mia X from way back, and Cash Money's UNLV got into a dis fast with Mystikal back when he was on the underground Big Boy label-something to do with Mystikal having been a high school cheerleader. But that's all par for the course in southern hip-hop. Besides, P spent a lot of the early 90's in California and for a while seemed to be more interested in trying out for the NBA than flexing on his rivals. This is why Ron discounts the conspiracy/beef theory. 'I don't know how true that was," said Ron, as the lobby traffic mills behind him. 'I just saw it as a simple business decision, not wanting to have two labels from the same area. But I respect what No Limit is doing. We're just trying to handle our own business." Actually, the only comparison that you can really make between the two labels is the different takes they have on the Louisiana hip-hop flavor. Cash Money is the latest in a long list of southern regional powerhouses. So no one, least of all Ron and Brian, expects to get a whole lot of play out of the 'indie label makes good' angle. These days, you gotta bring son thing new to the table, some character. Three 6 Mafia's Prophet Posse has its hellraising, gangster-Cenobite image. No Limit has its hip-hop soldier/survivalist thing going. The Cash Money crew? Well, they're a bunch of brothers who never really left the 'hood. Their Metarie offices are more than 90 minutes closer to New Orleans than No Limit's Baton Rouge headquarters. And they are taking that neighborhood flavor to the stage, adding a different image and slanguage ('Ha' follows every statement). Most of all, a different attitude. "If you a street nigga, you know what happenin' in the street,' says Brian, whose teen years included a drug-related stint in jail when he was 17. "And we are street niggas." Undilutedly so. The Big Tymers, for example-Mannie Fresh and Brian-don't even try to rap half the time. "We just talk shit," says Baby. And 1998's dopest new flow belonged to Juvenile, whose Crescent City slanguage-freighted gem 'Ha" [from his album 400 Degreez] had heads on the street trying to duplicate his crazy-ass, backwards tape-sounding rap style. That's why, staring pop success in the face, Suga Slim and Baby ain't blinked yet. You get the impression that they expected all of this to happen eventually. The distribution deal, the press junkets. The price of success, however, is physical wear and tear. Not just from being on the road for months at a time, but from the act of being an ndie record mogul. Both brothers come across as folks who have put a lot of miles on their bodies. And their minds. "We come from the New Orleans underground,' Ron says, talking in hushed, hoarse tones. 'That is the hardest place to establish a business. All the trials and tribulations you go through. [It's] murder. And then after you go through all of it, the reward is niggas trying to take you out. We're lucky. We are one of the few labels to come out of New Orleans that has been able to establish anything." The Williams brothers started their company in 1991, during the formative years of New Orleans' underground bounce scene. Their interest in the rap game dates back to the dawn of the decade, when they checked out a Tim Smooth show in Opelousas [La.]. 'We saw the crowd raving and ranting and reacting to what was going on,' says Ron, 'and we figured, 'We need to get into this." Eventually, they lined up one of the strongest indie rosters in the south. They had UNLV (Uptown Niggas Living Violent), whose material still rings up impressive numbers through Louisiana, Memphis and Texas. They also had Miss Tee, Kilo G. and Pimp Daddy, the music's star who most credit for the sing-song delivery used by many modern bounce artists. The company moved nearly 100,000 units each year between 1991 and '95. But the wilded-out N.O. environment kept tugging them backwards. Pimp Daddy was murdered in 1991. And by 1995, LV was coming apart at the seams. Despite having some of the hottest regional releases -"Uptown Fo Life' and 'Mac Melph Callio' (a reference to New Orleans' Magnolia, Melphamine and Calliope projectsy-the group was turning into a problem. "They didn't want to do right," says Ron. 'Not showing up for autograph signings, not showing up for sessions, not wanting to do promotional shows. They were good artists, so I can't say nothing bad about them. But they had some problems between themselves." So, one day in 1996, he and Brian decided to clean house. BG was the only artist survived. Producer Mannie Fresh remembers him as someone who was in the studio an hour early to work on tracks, always serious about making his shit was tight. And they picked up another bounce Juvenile, who had penned lyrics for DJ Jimi's best-selling 1991 album, It's Jimi. In fact, the regional hit 'Bounce for the Juvenile" off Jimi's release gave the genre its name. Everybody else went. Part of their decision was business. Career-minded Crescent City hip-hoppers are a rare item. Most indie artists' plans extend no farther than the profits from their next album (many of UNLV's problems came to a head after the group was released. One member landed in jail, another reportedly is in a sanitarium, a third is dead). But Cash Money was due for a musical change too. Bounce had turned into a dead end, Ron says. Eventually, he said, they reached a half-bounce, half-rap style-aided by Fresh's production wizardry. There was resistance, naturally, from folks who 'wanted to sit around and mark what other people were doing, the ones who were scared to do something new," says Ron. But eventually, the fresh start began to yield results. BG's Chopper City, the first disc that featured Fresh's live instrument-augmented approach, moved 100,000 units. Juvenile's relentlessly funky Solja Rags moved 200,000 on the underground tip in 1997. The Hot Boys' debut, Get It How You Live, moved 400,000 and rose to the top quarter of the Billboard charts after its release in the late part of 1997.... If you want to read this entire article order this magazine: XXL, April 1999 Story by: Tony Green Photos by: Jonathan Mannion