Bryan “Baby” Williams: In It For Keeps [June 2011 Cover Story Excerpt]

Two o’clock in the morning, on a warm spring night, Bryan “Baby” Williams pulls his blood-red Bugatti Veyron into the parking lot of the Hit Factory studio in Miami. Stepping out of the driver’s-side door in blue jeans, white-on-white Uptowns, a white YMCMB hoodie, a Gucci belt, dark sunglasses and a whole lot of diamonds and tattoos, the Cash Money Records founder looks like real hip-hop—a back-in-the-day era when rappers still dressed like they came from the hood.

Baby, 42, is from the streets of New Orleans, where he and his brother Ronald “Slim” Williams founded their label 22 years ago. They broke nationally in 1998, entering into a landmark distribution deal with Universal Records and selling millions of records by the Hot Boys—Juvenile, B.G., Turk and Lil Wayne. Juve, B.G. and Turk would jump ship a few years later, complaining of financial impropriety. But Wayne remained and was rewarded with a president position at the label and his own imprint, Young Money Entertainment. He would soon become, of course, the biggest star in rap music, and would sign a pair that would become the two biggest new stars in rap music, Drake and Nicki Minaj.

Baby, meanwhile, oversees it all. As hip-hop goes through its transitions and industry heavyweights fizzle out, lose power or disappear, he and his company grow stronger and richer every year. In April, Forbes magazine named him one of The Forbes Five: Hip-Hop’s Wealthiest Artists, tallying his wealth at $100 million (a figure he disputes as being far too low). XXL sits down for a conversation with one of hip-hop’s last true moguls.

XXL: When you look around at the industry and see the lack of moguls doing it like they used to, what does that make you think?

Bryan "Baby" Williams: When I look around, through my years and my time, you know, the game, it was a lot in the field, a lot of people doing it. And I look around, and it’s like, Where the fuck did everybody go? I ain’t never understood that, but the game like that sometimes. That muthafucka’s gon’ keep ya or it’s gon’ leave ya. It’s all on you.

So you look around and feel like everyone’s gone… What does that feel like? How does that work?

Just how heavy it was, how many different brands you had, how many different artists. Now it’s a new era, really. A lot of the old acts ain’t around no more, of the era when we come in the game. The labels, the corporations, they not supporting the brands. I think one of my biggest things was I been an independent brand. I always owned my own brand. I never been funded by them. It’s P&D deal. I was always able to use my money to do everything we wanted to do, too. So when you bagged up by them and they money, and you ain’t working out… You might have one bad year, and they’ll give up. Things might not balance out. It could be any little thing. Times change, like 9/11, depression. People didn’t wanna fuck with money like they used to. In my situation, I never had them do that for me. I always floated my own money. We made our own moves.

You and your label have been through a lot of ups and downs. You had major success coming in the game in 1998, but by 2001, the Hot Boys had broken up; Juve, B.G. and Turk left the label with beef; and Lil Wayne wasn’t nearly as big as he is now. A lot of people had written you off. What were you thinking?

You know, the way I grew up was, I lost my mama at two. My daddy died when I was, like, seven. My brother died when I was, like, nine. So I been losing lives all my life. So for the acts to leave me, it really made me stronger, ’cause personal life made me this way, and growing up taught us that we have to take a loss and try to make it into a gain. And it’s all I really had in life to do was music. So they losses, really, when they left, it opened me up to have to go harder, you understand me? At that time, Wayne was young, so I had to get it in. We had to go hard as a team. So then when he came to the plate like, “Let’s do it,” that was a wrap.

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It seems like an interesting role that you took at that point in the label. You named Wayne president of the company in 2005. You were stepping back in a sense.

Honestly, I gave him the floor. He wanted it. I been with him since he was seven years old, eight years old. I been in his life all of his life. And he was like, “Let me handle it.” At that time, me as an artist, losing my sister and everything I was going through personally, I was just like, “Go ahead, I’ma just support what you gon’ do. You can handle it.” And I took a step back. Probably was the smartest move I ever made in my life was to let him go ’head. And I saw his…he had a vision, and we stuck with it. I believed in him. I believed in everything he wanted to do, and I supported it. I still do that today.

What did it mean to take a step back?

Back then, I was looking at the flow, too. Observing the game. We had a lot of niggas in my position don’t wanna take the step back, and I didn’t wanna be one of them niggas, you know. I understood he can do it longer than me. He had the talent. And it’s my son, so I’m gon’ support whatever he wanna do. And I ain’t have a problem stepping back. Go ahead, you do it. I’m gonna rock with you. It’s yo’ world, our world. Do ya thing.

At that time, before Wayne blew up so big, was there ever a thought of, Maybe we don’t do this anymore? Did you ever think of quitting?

Never was, No, don’t do it. I always knew that he was gon’ do it. I was gon’ let him do it, ’cause he was young. So for me it was that or back on the block.

You had come so far. Could you have really gone back to the streets?

I mean, honestly, we never left there, you know. I just didn’t wanna have to be one of those ones who was a story like, He did it this year and ain’t do it the next year. I couldn’t. It was a fear factor for me to have it and don’t have it, be on top then don’t be on top. ’Cause I always studied the game. I watched the Suge Knights, the Master P’s, the Sean P. Diddys, Tony Draper, James Smith. I watched Eaz. I studied them, and I wanted to be better than all of them together.

Okay, so YMCMB is a little confusing. Is Young Money on Cash Money and Universal? If you’re signed to Young Money, are you signed to Cash Money? Is it the same label? Sister labels both on Universal? Can you explain?

Me and my son is partners. We partners. Everything we do, we do together. We 50/50 with it, and we one. I don’t look at us as separate. We one. We’re a unit. We a team. It’s our family. We work together, and we grind together, and we a team. Just point-blank, we’re a team.

So it doesn’t matter if Nicki and Drake are signed to Young Money or Cash Money officially?

They signed to Young Money.

But affiliated with…

Cash Money.

So it’s different on the paperwork, but you get in the studio, stay involved with everybody the same?

Yeah, I still do that. I love doing that. That’s what keeps me young, being in the studio. I worked with them all. We all got personal relationships. They my son acts. They the new talent, and they very talented. I think Drake gonna be the next best to ever do it, after Wayne. He gon’ hold the world down, and I feel like Nicki there. It’s just a matter of time. She will be…you never had a female artist that you would put in the realm with the males to be the best. She that…

That’s the picture we paint to the world. This is family, me and my son, Wayne. You know where we come from and how hard. Ain’t nothing never came easy to us. It’s a together-forever thing, and we wanna grow and let the artists grow. Let them be as big as they could be and just keep growing as a brand.

Do you think that you get the respect that you deserve for the role that you played over the past 10-plus years in hip-hop?

Nah, not at all. But it do give me another motivation. It make me wanna work harder. Maybe I didn’t work hard enough. I’ma just keep going hard and keep tryna let my muscle, my money, my creativity, just keep us getting bigger and bigger. I think we have a lot to do, and I have a lot to do. But I definitely think people ain’t got it yet, and that’s good, too. I respect that.

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