Cash Money Records

CTL-E-6294 · Institution · label · 1991–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07480 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6294.

Cash Money Records is a New Orleans record label founded in 1991 by brothers Ronald "Slim" Williams and Bryan "Birdman" Williams (also credited as Bryan "Baby" Williams). Built first on local New Orleans releases, the label signed B.G., Lil Wayne and Juvenile in its early-to-mid-1990s wave, and in May 1997 Birdman organized the Hot Boys, the Cash Money group that helped attract Universal Records. In March 1998 Cash Money became a Universal imprint under a pressing and distribution arrangement whose reported value is contested in the sources and is not asserted here. Wayne, the label's flagship artist for two decades, launched Young Money Entertainment in 2005 as a Cash Money imprint and joint venture. Cash Money's commercial peak is documented in releases including Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, released by Cash Money on June 10, 2008, and in later signings including Drake and Nicki Minaj. The label is listed as active, distributed in the United States by Republic Records, and was publicly billed as a participating label in an October 2025 Verzuz event.

The record

• Also known as: Cash Money

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (The Closer — 747 Program, Wave 13 final packet; a gap-closing packet built from the earlier packets' documented blocked edges). Gate A (2026-10-16): CLEAR — hand-checked against the live graph (3,910 entities): no Cash Money Records entity homed; Lil Wayne (CTL-E-5678), the Hot Boys (CTL-E-5798), and Tha Carter III (CTL-E-5948) all exist without their label endpoint. Alias discipline: YMCMB is NOT carried as an alias — it is the brand of the Young Money Cash Money Billionaires joint venture, not of this label alone (Wikipedia). ID CTL-E-6294 free at staging. Typing follows the graph's label peers (Motown CTL-E-1639; Atlantic CTL-E-4279; Stax CTL-E-6033). Supply: 747 blocked-edge harvest — Scan Tail Wave 2 documented the Tha Carter III (CTL-E-5948) released_by edge as blocked on this missing endpoint. SCOPE GATE: label endpoint harvested from a documented blocked edge in a merged packet; staged to close that edge, per the Closer brief. No net-worth or personal-wealth figures are carried, per packet doctrine. Vital status: ACTIVE — the opened Cash Money Records entry lists Status: Active, and a dated recent source (The Source, 2025-10-08) bills Cash Money Records as a participating label in an October 25, 2025 Verzuz event. STATISTICS (counted, sourced, dated 2026-10-16): Founded 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana (Wikipedia; REVOLT). Founders counted: 2 — Ronald "Slim" Williams and Bryan "Baby"/"Birdman" Williams (Wikipedia). Billboard totals as stated by Wikipedia: 12 number-one albums on the Billboard 200; 7 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. DEAL-VALUE CONFLICT, SHOWN AND NOT ASSERTED: (a) $30 million total — Wikipedia (three-year, $30 million distribution deal signed March 1998), BET ($30 million pressing and distribution deal), REVOLT ($30 million distribution deal); (b) $3 million — REVOLT, in the same passage, presents $3 million as the advance component of that deal, not the total; (c) a further variant — Wikipedia gives a $2 million advance each year, which does not match REVOLT's single $3 million advance figure. No single deal value is asserted on this record; a founder-approved reconciliation would be required before any single figure is published. WAYNE SIGNING CONFLICT, NOT BLENDED: discovered 1993 and signed at age 11 (Wikipedia, Lil Wayne) vs. signed by 1995 (REVOLT) vs. the 1993–1995 signing window (Wikipedia, Cash Money Records). CTL-E-5678's statement that Birdman signed Wayne in 1995 at twelve is NOT confirmed by the opened sources; it is flagged here for reconciliation at merge or in enrichment and is NOT silently overwritten. Hot Boys formation: May 1997 (Wikipedia). Young Money: launched 2005 as a Cash Money imprint and joint venture; announced as no longer a joint venture with Cash Money in September 2018 (Wikipedia). MEDIA: map N/A (label); photo HELD with named candidate; chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6294-cash-money.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map); audio HELD. MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Institution (label) records carry no map slot in this packet.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by nam) | audio = HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging.)

Referenced by

• Hot Boys — recorded for → this record
• Lil Wayne — recorded for → this record
• Tha Carter III — released by → this record

Sources

• Wikipedia, Cash Money Records (accessed 2026-10-16) — founding 1991 in New Orleans and founders; Status: Active; Republic distribution; March 1998 Universal imprint and the $30 million deal variant with a $2 million advance each year; Hot Boys organized May 1997; 1993–1995 signing window; Young Money 2005 imprint/joint-venture history and 2018 separation; Billboard totals as stated (12 number-one Billboard 200 albums, 7 number-one Hot 100 singles); YMCMB is the joint-venture brand, not an alias of the label alone — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_Money_Records (primary source · build store)
• REVOLT, How Juvenile's '400 Degreez' launched the Cash Money empire (2018) (accessed 2026-10-16) — 1991 New Orleans founding; signings by 1995; the $30 million deal with a $3 million advance figure in the same passage (the conflict shown in Statistics). Caution: this article misnames Slim Williams's first name in one passage; that passage was not used for the founders' names — https://www.revolt.tv/article/2018-11-03/97357/how-juveniles-400-degreez-launched-the-cash-money-empire (build store)
• BET, The History of Cash Money (accessed 2026-10-16) — independent support for the $30 million pressing and distribution deal figure, for Young Money as Wayne's imprint under Cash Money, and for the Hot Boys as a Cash Money release act — https://www.bet.com/photo-gallery/rkasat/the-history-of-cash-money/rxgu8w (build store)
• Wikipedia, Lil Wayne (accessed 2026-10-16) — Wayne discovered by Birdman in 1993 and signed at age 11 (conflict item); Hot Boys formation in 1997 and debut album that year; Wayne as the label's flagship artist until his 2018 departure; Young Money founded in 2005 — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Wayne (build store)
• Wikipedia, Tha Carter III (accessed 2026-10-16) — released June 10, 2008, by Cash Money, Universal Motown and Young Money Entertainment; debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with over one million first-week copies (as stated by the source) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tha_Carter_III (build store)
• The Source, Verzuz Makes Comeback With Cash Money Records vs No Limit Records (2025-10-08) (accessed 2026-10-16) — recent public activity: Cash Money Records billed for an October 25, 2025 Verzuz event, described as Birdman and Slim's label — https://thesource.com/2025/10/08/verzuz-makes-comeback-with-cash-money-records-vs-no-limit-records/ (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6294 · Combined Graph record U-07480 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 6 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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