Editorial: Is YMCMB The New Koch Records (nka eOne Music)??? [Part 1]

Cash Money Records (nka as YMCMB) is a label that’s gone through many changes from the time it was founded by brothers Ronald “Slim” Williams & Bryan “Birdman” Williams in 1991 to the present. From a then-unknown label boasting talent such as Papa Reu, B.G., & Magnolia Shorty to a rising label with The Hot Boys & Big Tymers as mainstays (including Mannie Fresh as the label’s in-house producer) at the time to a successful label keeping Drake, Lil Wayne, & Nicki Minaj on the charts, Cash Money has been a label that knows how to keep up with the times.

But as of a few years ago, I’m noticing a pattern where YMCMB (Young Money Cash Money Billionaires) is making a habit of signing washed-up artists, which is something that a popular independent record label known as Koch Records (eOne Music for the younger generation) has become known for. Of course, YMCMB has plenty of other horrible artists signed to them but this article mini-series will focus on the washed-up artists (current & former) they’ve signed over the past few years.

Busta Rhymes:

It wouldnt’ve been right if I didn’t jump this article off with one of hip-hop’s pioneers. And keeping the pioneer part in mind, Bus-A-Buss has been a big disappointment to me lately. After coming into the game as one-fourth of Leaders Of The New School in 1989, Busta had hit a rough spot in his career by the time he dropped his album ‘The Big Bang‘ in 2006. In 2011, Busta would make 1 of the worse decisions of his career by signing to YMCMB. Now this particular decision he made is something I’ll never understand. But it’s sad how a rapper can go from this to this.

Limp Bizkit:

Rap-rock band Limp Bizkit, formed by Fred Durst in 1994, was 1 of those bands that dickriders would aggravate the hell out of me talking about. I won’t even go into the reactions I would get anytime I said they was wack. Somewhere around the early ’00s, those same dickriders would fall out of love with the band. I was shocked when I heard they signed to YMCMB back in 2012. In my opinion, I thought Wu Music Group would’ve been a better fit for the band with all the collabos they did together. Guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Gudda Gudda:

It might be too soon for me to label Gudda Gudda as a washed-up artist. But after dropping seven mixtapes while he was one-third of a now-defunct rap group called Squad Up (with Lil Wayne & Kidd Kidd making up the other two-thirds) as well as four mixtapes as a solo artist & he can’t get it poppin, his status as an artist goes without saying.

Christina Milian:

R&B/Pop singer Christina Milian is another recent YMCMB signee that hasn’t had too much good luck in the music industry since she first signed to Murder Inc./Def Jam back in 2000. But even with an affiliation with Murder Inc. Records, a Ja Rule cosign (which hasn’t meant shit since 2003) as well as collabos with said artist, & a big marketing machine behind her, Milian has struggled to get it poppin. After signing to YMCMB in 2012, nothing has changed.

Tyga:

While he’s mostly known as a one-hit wonder (via his 2011 single “Rack City“) on YMCMB, most people forget Tyga dropped his debut album ‘No Introduction‘ as a Decaydance Records recording artist (with his cousin Travie McCoy as a labelmate at the time). In addition to the fact he constantly made wack music, he fell out of favor with the little bit of fanbase he had after he threw himself under the bus on an episode of an MTV show, the Kurupt-hosted “Bustas“, that never aired.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it because there will be more to come in Part 2 of this editorial mini-series.