The man who still holds the title of having the best-selling album ever released by Cash Money Records with his quadruple-platinum 1998 solo effort, 400 Degreez, Juvenile, wants the world to know that despite a now nearly two-year delay plans for the reunion release with his onetime partners-in-rhyme in the CMR super-group the Hot Boys (Juvenile, Lil Wayne [click to read], B.G. and Turk) are finally moving forward.
“Me and Baby [click to read] been talking the past week about taking time out our schedules and sitting down and doing this Hot Boys thing, ‘cause it’s time,” Juve revealed to HipHopDX late last Thursday (October 1st) of his recent discussions with Cash Money co-founder Bryan “Baby” Williams regarding the recording of a new Hot Boys full-length. “People been waiting for it. I don’t see us not going platinum real quick. I think if we do drop a album everything is gon’ be at a standstill in the industry. So, we need to really think about jumping into that. But I think that’s gon’ happen.”
Juvenile revealed to VIBE this past March that he has already signed on the dotted line to (and already been paid to) record this new Hot Boys project [click to read]. But a group album has remained in limbo for nearly two years now.
Initial reports surfaced in the fall of 2007 with B.G. and Turk confirming that a Hot Boys reunion was in the works following Lil Wayne’s “We back!” proclamation during a September ’07 performance.
Plans to publicly reunite first on stage on February 17, 2008 to cap off the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities in New Orleans [click to read] had to be scrapped after a shooting outside of the club where Juvenile, Lil Wayne, B.G. and longtime Cash Money in-house producer Mannie Fresh (in substitution for currently incarcerated fourth Hot Boy emcee Turk) were advertised by the club to perform together.
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A subsequent showing of unity amongst the Cash Money Millionaires took place two months later, at the same club, Dream, where their previous public reunion attempt had been thwarted by gunfire. While Juvenile, B.G., Mannie Fresh, and Baby all made it to the venue, Lil Wayne was touring at the time in Europe and could not attend. Weezy would finally appear alongside his pre-Young Money crew a little over a year later when he invited Juvenile and B.G. to join him on stage this past June.
That appearance also came roughly a year after the Cool & Dre produced “Ya Heard Me” leaked. The B.G. song featuring Juve and Wayne originally intended for Gizzle’s long-delayed new solo effort Too Hood 2 Be Hollywood [click to read] first surfaced a couple of months after the club Dream show, and has thus far been the only new cut with the trio of Lil Wayne, Juvenile and B.G. to make its way to the public.
“We got another song I think,” replied Juvenile when asked if “Ya Heard Me” is the only new Hot Boys track the trio has recorded since reunion talks began two years ago. “I don’t know if it surfaced yet. But nah, [“Ya Heard Me” is] not the last [new song we did together].”
The threesome haven’t officially been in the studio together yet due to logistical issues, as Juve explained of their previous attempts to musically reunite, “It was a situation where we were emailing [vocals] to each other. We never in the same area, bruh. I live in New Orleans. I don’t know if B.G. moved, I think B.G. live in – I think he live back in New Orleans now…ain’t for sure. But I live in New Orleans, Wayne live in Miami. Right now I think he overseas somewhere. So it is what it is until we can get it right.”
For the fourth member of their crew, his inability to reunite with his Hot Boy brethren is also a matter of locale, with Turk currently being incarcerated as he serves a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to the attempted second-degree murder of a S.W.A.T. Team member who was shot three times during a raid on a Memphis, Tennessee apartment complex in January 2004 [click to read].
“I wish I could have him out here right now, but bruh, it is what it is,” said Juve of Turk. “He locked up in Tennessee. They got laws down there dude that’s from what…the 1800s. And by that being the situation, being against the police… I put some money up and everything to get him out dude, so it ain’t like we not behind him to get him out and we don’t wanna see him free, he’s just in a situation where it’s ‘Johnny Law’ and he don’t wanna see him free.”
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Whether or not Turk finds himself a free man in enough time to join Juvenile, Lil Wayne and B.G. in their planned reunion project, just having Juve, Weezy and B. Gizzle willing to work together again is cause for Cash Money fans to celebrate after enduring years of Hot Boys separation (and subsequent jabs at one another in songs and in the press) following Juvenile and B.G.’s exodus from the powerhouse N.O.-based Rap label in 2002 to launch their own respective recording companies (Juvenile’s UTP Records and B.G.’s Chopper City Records) amidst claims of being cheated out of due monies by Baby.
“The financial squabble part been over with,” revealed Juvenile of his now deaded beef with Birdman, Sr. “We was just mad at each other. I been got my money years ago. My financial part of the squabble been over. When Juve The Great came out that was the end of the financial squabble. My thing just was we had never sat down and talked. Me and Baby had never talked and squared out our differences. That’s what we had to do. He was reaching out to me through various people, but they never got the message over to me. Then one day it got to me through my manager, so I called Katina Bynum over there at Universal and she gave me his number, and I called him.”
“Everything I just told you about Baby, it’s the same thing with Wayne,” Juve continued. “No different. Wayne pretty much – Wayne and Baby pretty much rock together. So when I speak to Baby I’m speaking to both of them, I’m speaking to Baby and Wayne. Me and Wayne already was talking, so I definitely didn’t have to have [a face-to-face] with Wayne. I had seen Wayne a few times already.”
While squashed beef between Juve and Birdman, Sr. and Jr. has yet to lead to the Hot Boys first unified effort (not including 2003’s leftovers release Let ‘Em Burn) since the group broke through nationally exactly 10 years ago with their platinum major-label debut Guerilla Warfare, Juvenile is planning to begin work on the long-awaited project immediately after next month’s release of his new solo effort Cocky & Confident.
“The ball in [Cash Money’s] hands right now,” he reiterated regarding the reunion album. “I couldn’t tell you [how soon you will get new Hot Boys music], bruh. Right now, my focus is getting my [new solo] album out. B.G. album coming out on the [24th] of November. I come out the 17th. And after that my focus is on the Hot Boys album. We were getting ready to go in the studio and put an album out before the end of this year, but Wayne blew up. And he got all these tours and all this stuff going on, and he gotta go get his money, so we had to put all that on hold for now. But it will happen.”
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Cocky & Confident is due in stores and online November 17th from UTP/Atlantic/E1 Entertainment.
