In 2004, Kanye West‘s College Dropout was a musical ode to chasing dreams in lieu of conventional wisdom. Jonesboro, Louisiana’s Louisiana Ca$h has also done it his way, a sentiment echoed throughout his forthcoming debut on Battery/Jive Records. “Music is really my passion. To drop out [of college], and turn down basketball [scholarships proves] my passion. I don’t want to do nothing else but succeed in it, because I turned down a lot of other things for it, and went out on a limb,” Ca$h told HipHopDX recently about breaking enrollment at Northwestern State University, including a spot on the basketball team. “Right now, that’s all I got. I’m trying to make the most of it.“
Having relocated to Grambling, Louisiana later in life, Ca$h‘s maturation in a college town gave him the opportunities to find his greater calling. “The first time I entered a talent show on Grambling State‘s campus. I remember coming back to my mama and said, ‘Mama, I think I want to rap.’ She said, ‘Boy, not with all [the work you’ve put in to basketball]. Boy, you’re trippin’. Nah, you better go hoop.’ I gave all that up for rappin’ now.“
However, as Ca$h traded cleats for a microphone, his mother would later understand her son’s convictions. “My family is real tight-knit. All we got is my mom. Whatever I’m doing right now, she’s happy for me. I just gotta stay on the right track.“
HipHopDX asked Louisiana Ca$h how it feels to watch basketball every winter, and question his wager, potentially risking a pro career. “My NBA is music. Even though I’m just a rookie, and the draft was just here last year, this is where I want to continue to go. I want to be MVP of the ‘Music NBA.’ I’m gonna keep pushin’. It wasn’t a bad decision at all.” The “draft” as it were, came courtesy of last year’s “Walk Wit’ A Dip,” a regional hit that led the young rapper to signing with a major label.
Despite his first hit’s subsequent dance craze, and title, Louisiana Ca$h asserts that he’s influenced by another onetime Bayou State star signed to Jive: Mystikal. With that influence, Ca$h is not only out to challenge expectations, he hopes to change them. “My goal is just to make good music. If people want to dance, they can dance. At the end of the day, I just want to make good music. There’s a lot of ‘doing the song…putting it on YouTube…making a dance…trying to make it #1.’ Like, that was the whole way. I see it dyin’ down now. People are going away from it, due to the Drakes, due to [Jay-Z] [click to read] comin’ back and sellin’ 400,000 [first week]. I see talent comin’ back. I relate to Rap, and I want to show people that… If we keep doing [dance], that’s the box they’ll put us in.” Like Jay, Ca$h wants to kill the trend that’s arguably yielded sensations such as Soulja Boy, V.I.C., and more recently, California’s New Boyz. “I got a song called ‘D.O.D. (Death Of Dance).’ When the video comes out, it’s gonna be heard.“
The song is set to appear on a forthcoming project with Florida mixtape mainstay, DJ Smallz. “I’m here to stop that whole stereo-type of dance [music coming from the south] with no lyrics. Try to,” adds Ca$h.
Presently, Ca$h is at work on his debut, My Life: The Introduction, Volume 1. The album is rumored to include work with several success Cash Money Records hitmakers, including Oddz.N.Endz (“Always Strapped”) and Beats How You Want Em (“Misunderstood”). As personnel confirms, Ca$h simply told DX, “My story relates to the average person. It’s real Rap, with lyrics…I’m not spittin’ lyrics that are over your head, but it’s not gonna be dumbed down. It’s gonna be beats that are a good sound that people maybe ain’t never heard.“
