Birdman To Put Cash Money Artists on the Big Screen With 'Rich Gang' Film

By DR LORI
For Birdman** and his Young Money/Cash Money crew, the charts are not the only thing to conquer. Up next: Hollywood.

In an interview with XXL, the YMCMB leader (and Billboard Power 100 player) talked up the launch later this year of his Cash Money Films project, which will serve as his creative outlet on the silver screen. With a few much-rumored projects in the works (including one with Omar Epps), he did confirm that he's looking to put the whole YMCMB roster - which features Drake**, Nicki Mina**j, Mystikal**, Busta Rhymes**, Limp Bizkit**, and Lil Wayne**, among others - into one film, with Weezy as the star. The movie is set to be titled "Rich Gang."

"We start shooting that in the fall," Birdman said. "That's the whole team. The Rich Gang movie is about the team. Everybody is going to be the star of it, but Wayne will be the center of it. It's about the team, everybody that's on the label."

It's unclear if that means that each artist will adopt some type of persona as part of a scripted film or if the project will be more of a documentary of the label, but it seems like Birdman is leaving that part of the process open-ended, at least for now.

"I would like them for just be themselves," Birdman continued. "I'm not gonna tell no ni**a to go to acting school. Just be yourself. We're excited as a brand about it. We got a few of them lined up and we gonna shoot them."

The CEO spoke to XXL while at the book launch for Wahida Clark's latest, titled "Payback Ain't Enough," which is out on the Cash Money Content book publishing division, and stated his desire to get her involved in his budding movie enterprise as well.

"When I got her collection, I was amazed at all the books she did already," he said of meeting the author. "I said, 'This is somebody I need to get into business with. She's hungry.' I'm looking forward to Wahida writing a script to one of her scripts and turning it into a movie."