KingsOfKings
❄️ 𝟐𝟐𝟕, 𝖂𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖜𝖊 𝕬𝖙 𝖂𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝕴𝖙! ❄️
The year is 2010 and Cash Money Records has just released Thank Me Later and Pink Friday, two albums from artists who would turn out to be the superstars of their generation. But as profitable as Nicki Minaj and Drake were becoming, Cash Money founder and CEO Birdman claimed the business venture that was truly fattening his pockets had nothing to do with music and everything to do with black gold.
"I heard the tattoo on your head represents an oil rig. Is it true you’re an aspiring oil tyc00n?
I’ve been in the oil business about four or five years now. That’s something me and my brother decided to do outside of music. I read about oil a lot and I was able to get in business. [My company] is called Browner Oil, and I’m making good money off that; that’s something for my kids and my kids’ kids. They can live off that money forever.
Not to get in your pockets too much, but I heard you’ve made over $100 million off oil.
I did a few different deals. That was just one of them. When you’re dealing with oil, you buy in different areas. Right now I’m active; I got pumps and sh*t that are getting money monthly. I like that oil sh*t. I’m gonna put some more time into it. - Prefix"
In some ways it felt too good to be true, but also like the next step in the evolution of a hip-hop mogul who had become less of a label exec and more of a superhero, a mythical figure seemingly untethered to the rules the rest of us mere mortals were bound by. Birdman was swimming in oil money? Of course, Birdman was swimming in oil money.
Although the company’s site is now down, thanks to the wonder of the internet we were able to recover images of it, and on the surface it certainly looks like an impressive endeavor.
"The Company is initially focused on exploration and development properties in Osage County, Oklahoma, as well as in Texas and Louisiana in the United States and in Central America. Bronald’s long-term strategy is to grow through development and via the acquisition of prospective acreage that complements its existing assets and exploits the abilities of the Company’s technical resources."
While the general hip-hop populace, and media, didn’t know much more about the oil trade than the price they were paying at the pump, those more in the know saw some red flags. Bloomberg investigated Birdman’s alleged cash cow and found some serious gaps and inconsistencies in the company’s story, including:
1. Numbers listed in records for residences in New Orleans and Florida linked to Bronald didn’t take incoming calls.
2. The address listed for Bronald with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is a beachfront condominium in Florida, while a New Orleans residence was listed for Bronald with the Louisiana Secretary of State. The Williams brothers are listed as Bronald’s officers in those filings, but regulators that handle oil and gas permits and operator licenses in Texas and Louisiana didn’t have records of Bronald’s existence at all.
3. Oklahoma City-based Chaparral Energy Inc. operated about 40 percent of the area's wells, but Jim Miller, the company’s senior vice president for operations and a man who knew the region’s oil landscape better than anyone, said he’d never heard of Bronald.
Whether the timing was sheer coincidence or a direct result of Bloomberg's reporting, Bronaldoil.com was taken down soon after their story was published and talk of the venture faded into rap internet lore, a splashy headline quickly drowned beneath the next wave of splashy headlines. Even the only visible evidence of the business’ existence, a pumpjack tattoo on Birdman's head, was covered up.
Inside Birdman’s Unbelievably Strange & (Probably) Fake New Oil Company - DJBooth Article
