Birdman, Bryan Williams and his brother Slim, Ronald Williams, are best known as being the fathers of Cash Money Records. Back in the early 1990s, the Williams brothers started the record label out of their New Orleans projects and since then they have been taking the music industry by storm. Altogether, the Hot Boys have gone multiplatinum and gold, selling over 45 million albums. Some of the hip hop artists associated with the record label has included Lil Wayne, BG, Juvenile and Baby, aka Birdman. With such great success in the music industry, it only makes since for Birdman to move on to bigger things. Well, word has it that he and his brother founded a new exploration and development oil company called Bronald Oil & Gas LLC.

The oil venture company has properties in Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and South America. Bronald Oil & Gas has yet to gain any investors or staff, since it is still in its beginning stages. Although, they do hope to partner up with other developers to “jointly exploit significant additional assets by leveraging Bronald’s infrastructure.” It seems that Birdman is so into his oil company that he got a tattoo of an oil well on his head.

“I want to make this a full-fledged entertainment and music company for all genres of music, from pop and rock to country and gospel,” says Slim. “I also want to make the film company just as big, if not bigger, than the record label. I want it all — music, publishing, film, videogames, DVD.” Hopefully the oil investment won’t be a big regret like with his prior investment in R. Kelly.

There’s been a lot on the plate of Lil Wayne, dealing with everything from court dates, hip hop albums and his new rock album (yeah, he’s dipping in pretty much everything these days). You may not have heard a lot from him this year, but we have heard from others like Gucci Mane (who’s been sentenced to 12 months in jail for violation of probation) and Drake who have been said to have taken Lil’ Wayne’s template for their own use. So far, it looks like it’s working. In some songs, Drake even sounds like Lil’ Wayne, like in the song “You the Best” (I thought it was Lil’ Wayne when I first heard it). The Carter came back to release “We are Young Money”, which features various artists. It was created by Cash Money, Young Money and Universal Motown. Lil Wayne has been working with various artists, piecing together the group Young Money– two of them being Drake and Nicki Minaj. Nicki is taking charge in the female rapping industry and is known as today’s hardest working female rapper. Other artists in Young Money include Gudda Gudda, Jae Millz, Tyga, Lil Chuckee and Lil Twist.

Also on Lil’ Wayne’s plate is his rock album, called “Rebirth”, which was accidentally leaked onto the internet when Amazon shipped out 500 or so pre-ordered CDs to customers. Rebirth was made by Universal Motown and Cash Money Records. Next year, Lil’ Wayne is scheduled to appear in court on Feb 9th for a gun possession charge that occurred in 2007. He is also set to start his sentence the same day. So far, his new group Young Money has produced two hits, “Every Girl in the World” and “Bedrock”. Hopefully Lil’ Wayne’s absence won’t slow down their productivity.

We’ve heard those words before,”I’m going into retirement”, from sooo many different hip hop artists, such as Jay-Z, Master P, Eminem and so forth. But for some reason, they just can’t leave the game alone. They all come back one or two years later with a debut album. Jay-Z is by far the worst, if you ask me. He has retired like 4 times, but just keeps coming back. I don’t and won’t believe it anymore if he says it again. Now, it just seems like a big publicity stunt to get people to buy their CDs because it’s the last time they will hear from them.

Now, Lil Wayne is claiming that he will retire, but no time soon. His retirement plan says that he will stay in the game no longer than 8 more years.Wayne claims that he always said that he wouldn’t rap anymore after the age 35. Ha, he says that now. A lot of people agree that rappers and hip hoppers shouldn’t be old and should retire to allow new game to come into the industry. But Jay-Z being an old head, of course, doesn’t agree. He says that it shouldn’t be made easy for the youngsters coming into the hip hop game. If they want to be on top, they’re going to have to work hard for it. Heck, it wasn’t made easy for Jay. Back then, there wasn’t as much competition as there is now, even if a lot of them are low-level rappers. People like these stars because they make good club bangers. After Lil Wayne retires, he’s looking to own a basketball team.

So it seems hip hop artistLil Wayne has been quite busy producing these past two years — no not music…babies! With all of the rumors and speculation surrounding Lil Wayne’s and Nivea’s hook-up, it has been recently confirmed that the two are now expecting a baby. This will be Lil Wayne’s fourth child and Nivea’s first. Come to find out, she is so far along that they already know that it will be a Lil Wayne jr. Yes, a lil boy is on the way, how glorious. But this boy won’t get the blessing of being the first, he is actually the third son of Lil Wayne in a little over a year. And Nivea makes the fourth baby momma. Wow…hasn’t someone been busy? With all of this counting, you could easily get thrown off track. Okay, let’s try this.

Lil Wayne’s first son was born last October in Cincinattti and then in September of ‘09, his second son came from the actress Lauren London and now Nivea is having his third son. He has a daughter, Reginae, from an older relationship with his ex-wife Antonia “Toya” Carter. When Lil Wayne was asked if Nivea was pregnant with his child, his response was “Yessir”. Then one reporter stated, “Two women pregnant at the same time. Congratulations.” Lil Wayne replied “Three.” No, he doesn’t have three women prego at the same time, what he actually meant was that it would be son number three. Hopefully all goes well and he takes care of his children and be a bit more responsible. Marry one of these women at least!

Fifty cent is well-known for his controversial style — he’s had beef with popular rap stars like Ja Rule and Fat Joe. The beef between Ja Rule and 50 cent spread quickly when it hit the streets. Everyone kept a close ear and eye on what was going on between the two and wondered who would win the rap war. Each came out with serious lyrics in songs towards one another, but the one that came out on top was Fifty Cent. He clowned Ja Rule enough to make everyone turn against him and then infamously shutting down his career. This was only the beginning for the conquest of Fifty. Next on his list were a few others, including the recent Fat Joe. After his popular song, “Lean Back”, Fifty Cent came out with a song that dissed Fat Joe and shut down his career. He tried coming back out with another album, but people just weren’t buying his album like they used to.

There is talk that Fifty Cent is looking to shut down even more careers — and has a focus on Lil’ Wayne. This may seem a bit impossible to do. The whole swagger and rap style of Lil’ Wayne has gotten him to where he is today. He’s known for wearing extra baggy jeans, iced out medallions with long chains and long dreadlocs. Many are waiting to see what dirt Fifty has to dish on Wayne, but guess we’ll have to wait and see what he comes out with.