Lil Wayne, Juvenile and Mannie Fresh were among the Hip Hop luminaries gathered in Los Angeles this week to celebrate Cash Money Records founders Slim and Birdman.
The brothers, born Ronald and Brian Williams, were the guests of honor at the second annual YouTube Leaders & Legends Gala, which took place in LA on Thursday (June 27).
During the star-studded black tie event, the New Orleans moguls were given their flowers through speeches from YouTube’s head of music, Lyor Cohen; BMI’s vice president of creative Catherine Brewton; producer Polow Da Don; and Republic Records’ chief executives Avery and Monte Lipman, who are also brothers, and who recognized the Williams brothers as mentors throughout their own careers.
Others in attendance included 2 Chainz, LL Cool J, NLE Choppa, Saweetie, Queen Naija, Yo Gotti, Kevin Liles, and Quality Control co-founder Pierre “P” Thomas.
Taking to the stage alongside his brother, Birdman used his acceptance speech to recall his and Slim’s upbringing and the business impact Cash Money’s legendary run had on the game, per Billboard.
“Life wasn’t easy for us; living in every project in New Orleans,” he said. “I was a real lost youngster trying to find a way because I’d been in and out of homes, in and out of jail, jumped in the streets at 12 years old; at 14 years old, I was wearing two Rolexes. I met some youngsters and didn’t want them to go my route, right? [Cash Money rapper] B.G. was hitting that route, and I saw that [Lil] Wayne looked like he was going that route too. ”
He continued: “I wanted to save their lives. My whole mission was to try to spare a life. And I needed help too because I was reckless. The only person that I respected enough to spare my life was my brother. And my way of saving their [B.G., Lil Wayne] lives was putting them in the studio. The studio was going to be the new streets.
“But all due respect to Jay-Z, I remember when he said he retired and Wayne shot a video and said since the best rapper retired, I’m the best rapper alive. And a lot of sh-t changed for us from that moment. At the same time n—as were saying hip-hop is dead. And we’re like honestly, what the f–k is they talking about? We ain’t know nothing about that type of sh-t.”
Birdman concluded: “So we felt like this was our time to take over hip-hop. That’s when the birth of Young Money came, Nicki and Drake came. We kind of held hip-hop down. We survived the warfare in New Orleans. Now we’re surviving in life, and we did a great job at it. [When] we started, all I thought about was saving four lives, and we end up saving thousands of motherf–kers’ lives. I give all gratitude to my brother, who was like my father, for saving my life.”
Slim, on the other hand, started out his address to the crowd by celebrating the three celebrated Cash Money alums who were on hand for the event.
“I want to say that I’m so proud of Juvenile, Wayne, [Mannie] Fresh because I saw them when they was in that studio,” he said. “They were in friendly competition with each other. We started off doing two songs and would end up doing five songs a night. They were there competing like a basketball player for real. But what really makes me so proud that they’re going on in their careers with generational wealth, doing other things outside of music while keeping music going.
“My brother and I went through a lot to get to this point. Someone once told me growing up that I ain’t never going to be sh-t and ain’t worth a quarter. But you’ve got to do better than that to break me down. I ain’t breakable like that. It made me want to go hard and work hard, so I’ve got a few more quarters now.
He then closed out with a bit of advice for the crowd: “Don’t let no one tell you what you cannot do! You do your thing. That’s the only way you’re going to win.
“I love y’all,” Slim added after shout outs to Polow, Mannie Fresh, Juvenile, Jeezy, Turk and Wayne. “Ain’t nobody else alive going to do what we’ve done — ever.”
