The lunching businessmen and lost tourists of Midtown Manhattan have no idea they’re rushing past one of the rappers who helped bridge the long divide between East Coast and Southern hip-hop. Juvenile, the original star boy of Cash Money Records, with his singsong twang and pulpy, got-it-out-the-mud tales of the harsh realities (crooked cops, dealers, killers, poverty) and good times (fat asses) of growing up in New Orleans, is standing outside of his hotel, thinking about his relationship to New York. “I’ve been coming here for 25 years, man, I love it in the summer when the shit ain’t too cold and the wind ain’t flowing,” he says. He takes a puff of his joint and fixes the t-shirt—in true Hot Boys fashion—wrapped around his head, before asking, “You ever hear about the time I rocked The Tunnel?”
Before I can answer, he jumps into the story, telling it like a noir protagonist flashing back to the good ol’ days. The summary: He was shook leading up to the 1999 performance, no out-of-towner had been able to win over the rowdy and choosy crowd of The Tunnel since Snoop around the time of Doggystyle. The advice he got was to not talk too much about where he was from and perform what they like, or risk getting booed off the stage and pelted with drinks. He did just that, tearing down the venue by rapping “Ha,” his jittery Mannie Fresh-produced anthem off his classic 1998 album 400 Degreez. “Then I got the fuck outta there,” he says, laughing. “New York has loved me ever since.”
More than 25 years later, it’s hard to imagine a hip-hop ecosystem that once didn’t view Juvie as a God MC. Even if you take 400 Degreez out of the equation, he’s got a deep catalog worth exploring, from his early New Orleans bounce demos to his big brother era in the Hot Boys to his post-Cash Money rebirth in Atlanta with Reality Check. And he’s still going. A couple weeks ago he released his newest album Boiling Point, a back-to-the-basics record with a bounce spirit, meditative mood, and a bunch of boozy brunch cuts for the aunties, uncles, and the heads.
When I was with him, he fiddled with a massive Bluetooth boombox until it started blasting the album’s Debarge-sampling first single “Hot Boy Summer” down 42nd Street. He stood there for a few minutes, letting the bounce rhythm sync with the noise of honking cars and ambulance sirens. After that we headed up to his hotel room, where his son and wife were hanging around, and had a conversation about the music that has defined his 51 years of life, from rap’s early radio hits to the music of the generation that looks at him as a forefather.
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