Baby

Born Bryan Williams on 15 February 1969 in New Orleans, Louisiana, the rapper took on the alias Baby, also styled the #1 Stunna. As a principal force behind southern hip-hop’s emergence in the late 1990s, he helped steer the independent powerhouse Cash Money Records to national prominence. He launched the label in the early 1990s alongside his brother Ronald ‘Suga Slim’ Williams and producer Mannie Fresh. Near the decade’s end, Baby and Fresh launched the side project Big Tymer$, issuing a series of hit albums that peaked with the 2002 US number-one release Hood Rich. The same year the showy Baby stepped out solo with the lively album Birdman, whose beats came from Mannie Fresh, Cash Money’s up-and-coming Jazzy Pha, the omnipresent Neptunes, and Swizz Beatz. A roster of high-profile guests supplied vocals, among them Toni Braxton, Foxy Brown, Lil Wayne, and Cam’ron, while P. Diddy contributed additional vocals to the modest-charting single ‘Do That … Baby’. Williams later made Birdman his official recording name.