Cash Money’s Birdman: ‘I Own 100 Percent Of My Company’

In a recent podcast, Birdman said he has owned all of his music since signing a distribution deal with Universal Records in 1991

In a recent interview, Cash Money co-founder Birdman stated that he has always had complete ownership of his masters and publishing; and still does.

According to Complex, Birdman, who co-founded Cash Money Records in 1991 (once home to Lil Wayne, Juvenile, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and many other recording artists) with his older brother Ronald “Slim” Williams, told Steve-O on his “Wild Ride!” podcast that “100 percent” of the music put out by Cash Money is owned by him.

Steve-O, who revealed that he recorded a song with Birdman at his house years ago, “From the Ghetto to the Swamp,” discussed Birdman’s business mind. The label owner says that he “never allowed” the labels to own any part of his music catalog.

“I did own everything. I never allowed none of the labels to own anything. Universal never owned nothing. We owned all our own music and publishing.” He also stated that “still today, I own 100 percent of my company.”

He admitted that when he first got into the music game, he had no idea what publishing was, but he did know that he wasn’t about to give up anything. Right off the back, he just knew that he was going to own all of his work, and he expressed as much to his then-attorney when they went to Universal Records before signing a distribution deal.

“When I went to [Universal], I ain’t even know about publishing and all that. I ain’t know about none of that. I went to them with… an attorney… Whatever his name was, I just was like, ‘I ain’t trying to give up nothing.’ ‘Cause I felt like I lost everything already. I lost my family. Nothing can repay me for what I already lost. I lost my mama, my daddy, my brother, my sister. … I live a hell of a life as a kid, so I ain’t think that none of that could be replaced. So I was like, this is what I want to do. … I want [to] own my sh*t. I’m going to own 100 percent of my sh*t.”