B.G.(cash money)

[Mota]

Y’all wanna know: Is B.G. still down with Cash Money? Is he in a coma? Rehab? Jail? Still messing with drugs? Finally the Southern rap pioneer Reynolds wraps all those damn rumors.

There’s nothing like secrets—precious information hidden away in someone’s head and heart. Most celebrities are able to keep most of their skeletons hidden away from those inquiring minds who take every interesting tidbit from them and run with it. Privacy is hard to keep. Trust is hard to earn. Especially, if you’re a journalist.

B.G. has some secrets. He’s kept quite a few of them concealed for years and on this cool January night in Orlando he is busy hiding something else. The veteran Southern rapper is lounging in the VIP room of the Palladium International, a club filled to the max with B.G. fans eager to get buck with the Hot Boy. With a few of the club-goers sneaking downstairs to catch a glimpse of the rapper, B.G. seems a little uneasy and is not taking any chances—“Who knows what goes on in Orlando?”—he would later say. Unbeknownst to most, he’s got himself a gun hidden away in the waistband of his baggy gray Gucci outfit. Every couple of minutes he fiddles with it, switching the pretty silver piece from side to side, making sure it won’t slide down an oversized pant leg and into the ankle of his matching gray Timb.

While B.G. is adjusting his heat, a camera crew from a local cable access channel enters VIP for an interview. Before the camera begins rolling, B.G. scans the room for a place to stash his piece while on the air. With few options in the confining room he swiftly takes the pistol out of his pants and shoves it under his ass. B.G. spends the next 10 minutes answering questions, the whole time he keeps his laid–back Uptown New Orleans vibe while continuously holding one hand steadily by his thigh.

Once the segment is completed and the crew is packing up B.G. quickly jumps up and hastily sticks the revolver back in his waistband for easy access. Well aware of the penalty for a convicted felon getting caught with a weapon, B.G.’s face reeks of relief. Another one of his secrets remains hidden.



“I was an ordinary kid when I was young,” says B.G. of his prepubescent youth while tipping his chair on its back two legs. He has one foot up on the coffee table balancing the chair to keep it from toppling over. It’s six hours before show time and the rapper is relaxing in an Orlando’s Marriott hotel room. He’s just finished spending an afternoon at the Florida mall and as his body winds down so does his energy. Today Christopher Dorsey looks older than his 21 years. His face is slightly withered and his signature-swollen eyes are fastly filling with sleep. His slow speech is almost inaudible as he speaks into a tape recorder, which frequently slips out of his scarred up hands and falls to the ground. He apologizes profusely. You hope he’s no longer using drugs.

“My daddy died when I was 12 from gunshot wounds,” B. Geezy drawls while plopping the chair safely back onto all fours. “We were close. After his murder I started runnin’ the streets, actin’ out, hustlin’. When my daddy got killed is when I really got into rappin’. I had been doin’ it since 10 but I wasn’t that serious ‘cause he didn’t want me to do it. After he died I started experiencing more things in the streets and I became a rapper. People had already liked my freestylin’ but I had nothing to say until I started to see more shit on the streets of Uptown [New Orleans].”

In 1992, not long after Christopher’s father’s untimely murder, the young rapper hooked up with brothers Bryan “Baby” and Ronald “Slim” Williams who he already knew from around the way. The two owned a then burgeoning label, Cash Money Records and they just so happened to get their hair cut by the same man who cut the bad-ass lil’ boy’s hair. “Our barber always wanted me to rap for ‘em but I never would,” B.G. says, laughing. “Every time they came into the place I would run away until one day I got caught there and I had to kick something for ‘em. Baby handed me his card and a week later they just came and picked me up. My mother signed a five year contract and before I knew it I was rapping.”

Over the next couple of years young Christopher, also known affectionately as Doogie, helped form the Cash Money family and not only did he have two father figures in Baby and Slim but he also had the guidance of in-house producer Mannie Fresh and the CM’s then popular rap group U.N.L.V. “The average kid in New Orleans could bust a rap and we all knew B.G. could spit but none of us knew what he really had in him,” U.N.L.V.’s Lil’ Ya explains. “But it didn’t take long for anyone see that the young kid had talent. He was always running around spitting something dirty.”

At that time U.N.L.V. was holding down the NO music scene with their homegrown bounce style. With B.G.’s old-before-his-time thugged out lyrical skills and his laid-back flow the label soon realized that this MC was ready to burst onto the scene and what better way to do so then on the biggest local group’s album.

Doogie’s first public appearance was the song “B.G.'z (True Story)” off U.N.L.V.’s third album Mac, Melph, Calliope (1995). Not long after the release Doogie and fellow future label mate Lil’ Wayne were thrown together to form the CM group the B.G.’z or the Baby Gangstas. But with conflict on Lil’ Wayne’s end, the young group’s first album True Story (1995) became Doogie’s solo debut and from there Christopher adopted the moniker B.G. True Story didn’t earn much of a buzz but Cash Money’s popularity was growing and young B.G. was a solid member of the fam. He was the only artist to survive several label roster clean-outs and started making frequent guest appearances on all of the record label’s releases. “Everybody [on the label] was trippin’ and getting’ big headed and I wasn’t,” B. G. reflects. “I was just observin’ under Bryan and Slim’s wing and by me being under, everything about me grew.”

Soon his individual style would become more recognizable in the regional music scene. Unfortunately, it was parallel to that time that B.G. began experimenting with drugs. “First it was marijuana and then I graduated to heroin,” he reveals. “That’s what my drug of choice ended up being.” Also during that time B.G.’s troubles with the legal system began. “I’ve been property of the state since I was 14,” he says. “In my first charge I got caught with possession of a firearm, crack and marijuana and I got sentenced to 36 months in jail. They suspended the sentence and gave me three years probation. I done two months in jail.”

While battling the law and drugs, B.G. released his second LP, 1996’s Chopper City. “That album was the first to really put me all the way out there,” he recalls of the record. “It hit for me. At that time New Orleans was known for bounce music and I just came and flipped the script. I just came raw, streets ruling me, just gangsta with it. After that everybody respected me as a lyricist, bein’ different, keepin’ it real.”

With the Crescent City still reeling from the unexpected explosion of Chopper City a new type of music began to grow. “What I tried to do was do more storytellin’,” Geezy says. “I didn’t know how it was gonna come out. My whole thing was to be different. I loved bounce music, the shake ya booty music but that just really wasn’t me. I wanted to give it some words. I could speak to people that way. How were you gonna like me if you couldn’t feel me?”

Following Chopper City, B.G. wanted to release a double album but instead his work was broken up into two albums released in a three month period. In July 1997, It’s All On You Vol. 1 dropped followed in October by It’s All On You Vol. 2. Both received similar sales to Chopper City (70,000 units) but didn’t satisfy B.G. the same way. “Chopper City was as me as you could be,” he laments. “The other’s were still me but Chopper City was the rawest B.G.”

Around this time, Cash Money also created the group, Hot Boys, made up of solo artists Juvenile, Lil’ Wayne, Turk and B.G. The group’s first LP, Get It How You Live (1997) took time to take off but eventually sold approximately 158, 000 units independently—better than any other album ever put out by the label.

[Mota]

But even with the release of acclaimed albums and all the extra work to keep the rapper occupied B.G. was still troubled by his old demons. “When I was about to get off the three-year probation I caught another charge for more drugs and I got probation on top of that,” Geezy declares. “Then I kept on gettin’ charges: I had another possession of marijuana charge then I kept on goin’ back and forth to jail for violatin’ parole. The most I’ve been in jail for was like seven months but then 30 days here, 15 days there and so on. I was also in and out of rehab. It was all durin’ the time that I was also tryin’ to establish my career no just locally but nationally.”

In 1998, Cash Money signed that infamous $30 million distribution deal with Universal Records in exchange for a percentage of future profits. At the time the label had Juvenile moving steady units but B.G. was clearly the crew’s anchor. “I was one of the main reasons they got that deal,” he insists. “I was elevatin’ the game.” Soon things changed. The company’s first release with Universal was Juvenile’s five-time platinum 400 Degreez (1998) which clearly overshadowed B.G.’s platinum-selling Chopper City in the Ghetto (1999). Still the latter album did birth one of the most popular songs in New Orleans history, “Bling Bling.” The term itself represented diamonds, platinum and gold and soon went on to become one of the most prominent slang terms in hip-hop. But even though B.G. loved the album, his hit record didn’t reflect his lifestyle. “That bling bling shit don’t excite me,” he growls. “I’ve always been G’d up and soldiered down. Bling bling had nothing to do with strugglin’. It’s just how I started to live sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, that’s what took me to that other level but that ain’t me. The album was but the song wasn’t.”

B.G. national notice continued when the Hot Boys released 1999’s Guerilla Warfare, which sold 1.5 million copies and featured him on explosive hits such as “I Need A Hot Girl” and “We On Fire.” Soon every time you turned on the radio or TV you would hear or see the Cash Money Millionaires.

Over the next year or so CM did two major tours and released several more albums including B.G.’s gold-selling sixth solo LP, Checkmate (2000) Next B.Geezy united with New York rapper Prodigy to create “Y.B.E. (Young Black Entrepanuers)” for P’s solo debut H.N.I.C.  (2000) “Prodigy called my people out of the blue and said he wanted to work with me,” he says. “I was really surprised because I had never really fucked with anyone from the East Coast before.”

“I wanted to use B.G. on the song ‘cause number one—I like his music,” Prodigy explains of his decision to collaborate with the predominately Southern star. “I like how he puts his songs together. I wanted to grab him up cause he got that ill voice and lyrics and because of that he is similar to me. He's one of those underrated cats that’s been killing it for years.”

But since his appearance on H.N.I.C., B.G. has been noticeably absent from the public. Rumors of a riff with Cash Money ala Juvenile began to spread like a four alarm blaze. Most disturbing where reports that he O’dead and died.



These days when he’s not on the road doing shows, the place to find B.G. is at the headquarters of Chopper City Records. The modest office houses B.G.’s current dreams. He’s often there fiddling with his computer. He checks his e-mail frequently and the company’s website is surprisingly impressive.

It’s here that more of B.G.’s secrets will be shared via telephone. Sometimes face-to-face is just too hard. With no eyes piercing into him, B.G. bears his soul in an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

“I know articles before talked about hidden rumors of my drug use: the rehabs, the gettin’ clean, the relapsin’ and a lot of that was true,” B.G. says. “I admit I still mess with the drugs here and there. If I choose to get loaded it’s ‘cause I want to get loaded. It’s just hard times.

“People see me but they really don’t see me. I already done walked in the shoes of a 30-year-old man and I had no real childhood. I have a lot of weight on my shoulders. I have children, I have a family that depends me. Me getting loaded is not no every day thing ‘cause I got responsibilities but I’m not going to sit here and say that I don’t sometimes say, ‘Well, fuck it.’ But I never overdosed!

“I heard that all on the radio that I was supposed to be hangin’ on by a thread. That was a fuckin’ lie. I was never in no coma and I wasn’t in jail that time. Don’t get me wrong, the drugs is true but the overdose is not real. That didn’t happen. I was in rehab in July to August of 2001.”

With the drug issues cleared up B.G. is ready to address talk of a seperation from Cash Money. “We cool and I’ll always be a Hot Boy,” B.G. firmly states before continuing, “I don’t know as of right now how long I’m going to be signed with ‘em but the paperwork is in the mix. Baby and Slim are not managin’ me anymore. We just decided that a couple of months ago.

“I wanted to see if things would be better for me with another manager who didn’t own the label. I ain’t never really had no solid thoughts about goin’ anywhere because I didn’t know where my move was going to be. I’ll always be Cash Money. That’s where my heart is. We made each other but it’s time for me to step up to the plate and do my thing. What I really want to do is be a solo artist on my own label.”

And that might just happen, thanks to loved ones. B.G.’s aunt Carole Dorsey is the CEO of Chopper City Records and has big plans. “We’ve got two artists, Doogie’s younger brother Hakim who used to rap with Cash Money and Van,” Carol explains. “We’ve been busy running all over performing and getting the word out there about Chopper City because it’s Doogie’s time to shine now. He has family around him to support him now and his head’s in the right place to do this.”

B.G. feels he’s experienced and analyzed the industry enough to create his own dynasty during a time when new blood is lacking. “There needs to be new entrepreneurs in this game,” he states. “Shit’s getting boring. It’s the same old people doing the same old shit and a lot of it is fake. I have to take it back to the streets. Bring back the old B.G. from Chopper City to eat ‘em up ‘cause when I first came into the game I was hungry and I’m hungry again.”

But in order to succeed B.G. has to make sure he stays focused and away from drugs. As much as his kindness and charm can woo you, one has to wonder: Can he really make it on his own without Cash Money when he obviously hasn’t overcome his life long battle with heroin? “Anybody who cares about somebody who’s got a history like mine with drugs around them has to have some feelings and concerns about their well bein’,” B.G. says. “I respect that and appreciate it but I’m going to be alright. I love them ‘cause they’re there for me and they love me ‘cause I’m lovable.

(xxl magazine)

[bLaDe]

nice avatar

 -{bLaDe}

[Mota]

www.choppercityrecords.com
it's cool

[Jay ay Beee]

Who's the guy in between Kokane and Tray Deee?

[BL7]

Thanks for postin' this. It's good to know B.G. is okay. Hopefully he'll drop something soon.  

[Mota]

Who's the guy in between Kokane and Tray Deee?

I don't know.
Maybe on of L.a. Zoo?

[Siberian_Wolf]

I don't know.
Maybe on of L.a. Zoo?

Why you think so?

[Mota]

Why you think so?

Why i can't think so?

[Hatesrats™]

Thanx for the read homie...
This is tight new's..

Finaly the rumors are put to bed..

peace..
Hatesrats 2oo2

[Smooth]

very tight read... thanks homie

Peace

[Dogg_Pound_Gangsta]

good shit homie.  hopefully bg can get his shit together and drop some dope shit soon.

[D1G1T4L]

looks like cash money is going to become another deathrow

[Jamal420]

please please tell me that you cut & paste that and that you didn't type it.........LOL........

[Jome]

please please tell me that you cut & paste that and that you didn't type it.........LOL........

Nah, Myrealname writes all the shit he posts.