Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Bryan “Birdman” Williams (f.k.a. Baby) grew up with the odds against him, but the music industry veteran used his business savvy to catapult himself beyond the expectations of his environment. Today, Williams, along with his brother Ronald “Slim” Williams, heads the multimillion dollar record label, Cash Money Records, which is home to hip-hop superstars like Lil Wayne and his Young Money roster (Drake, Nicki Minaj, etc.).
Not limited to hip-hop, Cash Money recently inked a deal with Florida-bred rock group, Limp Bizkit. “I was a fan of Limp Bizkit and Fred [Durst]. He is a great artist,” says Williams of deciding to bring the five-man rock group into the Cash Money family. “I want him to release music, and develop our rock department, both with his music and even [by] bringing in talent.”
While his empire was built on music, Birdman has spread his corporate wings into other mediums, including publishing with the launch of Cash Money Content, a book-publishing house under the Cash Money umbrella. With the intent of making a positive environment for other African American children like himself, Williams has taken on the mission to get “more of us reading as a people.” Based on his rags to extreme riches story and understanding of the importance of literacy, BlackEnterprise.com sat down with Williams to understand the man behind the Cash Money machine.
The Cash Money brand has been extremely successful in music industry over the last decade. What made you want to branch off into publishing with Cash Money Content?
One of my personal reasons, I think we should read more as a people. And me, personally, I felt like I should read more. We have so much influence on the music world, I just wanted to convert it with books, and just get us [people of color] to read more. I think reading exercises the mind. To be special in life, we have to be self-educated, and I consider myself self-educated.
What have the fans’ reactions to the books thus far?
The whole thing has grown fast. The cross-promotion from our music company to our book-publishing company [has] had an instant impact.
A lot of notable names are on the publishing lineup; how were you able to secure the authors released under Cash Money Content?
We have a [literary] agent named Mark, who really helps us with this company. He really brings a lot of writers like Wahida [Clark] and Ashley & JaQuavis—those are real book writers. Evelyn Lozada [from Basketball Wives] came through Theresa, [rapper] Bow Wow’s mama, who is a friend of Evelyn’s. I think [with] Evelyn and everything she has going on, her book is going to be very special. I’ve been a friend of [radio personality] Big Boy for about 15 years, [and] I heard about [his] situation. I wanted that opportunity to be able to do some business with him.
Do you have any plans beyond simply publishing these books and possibly turning them into films?
We’re putting out like 10 books this year to my knowledge, so we’re just trying to grow with it. A lot of the books that we do I want to turn into movies. We’re working on [a] script right now. The whole goal for me is to turn them into movies and to get more of us reading as people.
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You’ve made quite a name for yourself as a businessman in the music industry, and now book industry. What is the secret to your success in business?
Family; loyalty; dedication; hard work; sacrifice; a lot of hours; and being smart. Everything is about your team; it’s never a selfish achievement. I just keep going forward [and] keep trying to expand this [brand] everyday. You can’t stay small. You have to keep trying to expand. And really I give my life to it… I really love my job passionately. I love to see these youngsters become superstars. That’s a gift. To me, it’s just being able to bless these youngsters that we have, and all these people on the label. Helping them become stars, that’s a blessing from God.
Thinking back to when you were a kid, did you decide this is what you wanted to do with your life? And did you ever think you would get this far?
When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I was going to do in life. I didn’t even know if I was going to be able to live life the way we grew up. Life for us is like right now, we didn’t even look at tomorrow. So once I got passed that hump in life, I realized, Now I got to make a life for myself. Once I realized I had to do something positive with my life, I dedicated my life to it. We lost a lot to gain what we gained. It was about making the right choices. It’s the easiest, but one of the hardest things to do to make the right choices. I ain’t never thought we could be where we at. I ain’t never thought we would actually live this long. I ain’t ever think we could be successful in life. But I took the chance and it all paid off. We worked hard, and we still work hard to be at this level of life. That takes more work than it took to get here, but we appreciate the work part of it, that’s what we like.
What’s one of the hardest choices you had to make coming up in music?
The hardest part of this [industry] is the fight, the battle. You fight everyday, and you battle everyday for your team, and it’s about my team. Nothing else matter when it comes to my team. It’s when I got to go do these deals and negotiate and build my staff, and have a strong enough team to make sure all these artists get the proper treatment; the proper rollout; the proper everything. We’re trying to make everybody superstars, and that’s a big challenge to have everybody a superstar. It’s a process, and you have to keep your [stuff] together. Every mistake costs. We might make it look easy, but it takes a smart individual to survive in this [industry and] deal with all the war paint that comes with this.
Is there anything you haven’t accomplished yet that you want to do?
I want to be a billionaire. I want to be the first billionaire brand ever in music. But in order to do that, you have to go through a lot when you’re building. We haven’t got there yet, so we’re just going to keep grindin’ and grindin’ til we get it—by any means necessary. That’s the goal.
Knowing that there are hundreds of children out there who think how you thought as a child, what advice would you give them so they can believe in more?
Don’t ever think that you can’t do [anything] because it will all be done through God. It’s a blessing; it’s a touch; it’s a feeling. It starts with your heart and your mind. You can’t ever think you can’t accomplish it. Once I [saw] I could accomplish something, I knew if I could get one dollar, I could get $100; if I could get $100 I could get $1,000; if I could get $1,000 I could get $100,000; if I could get $100,000 I could get a million, if I could get a million I could get a billion. That’s been my whole goal, just to elevate some kind of way in life. Sometimes elevation [doesn’t] happen overnight, sometimes [it] takes time. One thing I learned about this business [is patience]. That’s one thing I was fortunate enough to be able to have was patience.
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