The University of Nevada at Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels are the fourth winningest basketball team in Division I history. In 50 years, they’ve only had 4 non-winning seasons. In 1990, they beat Duke in the NCAA Championship with a score of 103-73, not only setting a championship score margin record but becoming the only team to break 100 points in the championship (a record that holds to this day). So by 1992, when beloved UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian was forced out in controversy after a 19 year stint with a 509-105 record, you could say that UNLV had made a name for itself.

But if you saw people walking around with UNLV hats in the streets of 1993 New Orleans, they probably weren’t reppin’ the Runnin’ Rebels.

You see, in NOLA, UNLV represented a different kind of ballin’.

The U is for Uptown, Uptown /
The N is for Niggas, Niggas /
The L is for Livin’, Livin’ /
The V is for Violent, fucking Violent…

1993 would bring a dramatic shift to the New Orleans Bounce music scene. Before ’93, all of the Bounce artists put their songs out on different labels, usually as one-off single deals. Silky Slim put out “Sister Sister” on Profile, the same label that put out the original “Drag Rap” record. Lil’ Elt and 3-9 Posse had Parkway Pumpin’ Records, which would also be Magnolia “Soulja” Slim’s first label home. But there was no “house of Bounce”; no one label dedicated to putting out Bounce artists and encouraging their collaboration.

Then came ’93.

Brothers Ronald and Bryan Williams had founded Cash Money Records in 1991 and released the label’s first project the following year in Kilo G’s The Sleepwalker (a cassette which I was given for free at a concert when I was in high school and which I might still have). Far from a Bounce artist, Kilo G was pretty close to horrorcore. (I think I remember at least one reference to having sex with a dead body on his album.)
But by 1993 Cash Money was ready to Bounce.

Bounce, bounce for UNLV /
Shake, shake dat ass for the F-A-T…

UNLV consisted of Lil’ Ya (aka Lil’ Fat), Tec-9, and Yella Boy (though I’m not sure Yella was a part of the group yet when they recorded “Another Bitch” seeing as he didn’t have a verse and wasn’t even invited to the party when Ya was passing poor Yvette around to the crew). UNLV were pioneers of a sound known informally as “gangsta Bounce” wherein they used the Bounce cadence and sampled “Triggerman” here and there but lyrically weren’t quite as formulaic as the early Bounce hits with their reliance on repeated chants and ward shout-outs. UNLV tended to go into more storytelling, and the stories they told were as raw and street as their first album title 6th & Baronne suggested.

I’ma talk some mo’ shit about another bitch /
Said I’ma talk some mo’ shit about another bitch /
I said biiiiiiiiitch, stop talkin’ dat shit /
And suck a nigga dick for an outfit /
So won’tcha do dat daaaance; ya shakin’ dat thing /
I’ma buy dat hoe some medallion earrings…
- Lil’ Ya of UNLV from “Another Bitch”

Please don’t ask me why genius.com has poor Ya saying he gon’ buy dat hoe some onion rings. Sometimes I don’t know why they call themselves “Genius”. Fun fact: Mia X may have been responding to Ya on “Da Payback” when she said, “No medallion earrings; that shit played out.”

Of the trio, Tec-9 was “technically” (haw; how punny) the best rapper, Yella was next, and Ya didn’t have to be a great rapper because his voice was so wild and his style was so funny that you always looked forward to his verses. I’ll never forget on “My 9”, a song on which Ya suggested that a woman have sex with his 9 millimeter pistol, when he said, “Lil’ Ya is the type that don’t give a shit / My three favorite words is doggin’-a-doggin’-a-doggin’-a-bitch…”. I get it. We’re far too evolved, too post-#MeToo, to find humor in such brazen misogyny now. But when I was in high school, I thought that shit was hilarious.

6 plus 6, pick up the sticks /
I’ma get the hoe hair fixed /
And if I think the hoe love me, thinkin’ of me /
I’ma buy the hoe a Polo rugby /
And if the shirt don’t fit, it might be too small /
I’ma let that bitch suck between my balls /
So biiiiiitch, let’s have sex /
I’ma give you twenty dollars out my next paycheck…
- Lil’ Ya of UNLV from “Another Bitch”

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how ridiculous these lyrics are. What does the shirt being too small have to do with her sucking your balls? Why are you punishing her because the shirt you got her was too small?

But probably the most ridiculous line in the song is from Tec-9:

Don’t get mad if you’re in my rhyme /
A lot a people talk about you so it’s not the first time /
So biiiitch, don’t you be mad /
I put you in my song, so you should be glad…
- Tec-9 of UNLV from “Another Bitch”

Really, Tec? I mean, did you even believe that your own self?

My most lasting memory of this song is when I had the nerve to ask the DJ to play it at my sister’s Sweet Sixteen party. To be fair, I wasn’t being mischievous. I was just trying to get the people dancing, and Bounce was known to do that. Plus, I asked for the “clean” version, which was called “Another Trick”. But with a song like this, I’m sure you can imagine how even the radio version was pretty wild. I don’t think the song was halfway through before my dad told the DJ to cut it off. Now that’s what you call a “UNL-Veto”. Bah-zing!

I can’t overstate the importance of UNLV to New Orleans rap. They are the OGs of the scene; damn near the New Orleans version of UGK. Their style bridged Bounce with straight up gangsta rap in a way that would influence both genres throughout the region. This won’t be my only blog about their music, so you’ll get to hear more about Yella and his contribution to the group’s music prior to his 1997 murder.

Like the rest of this pre-Hot Boys first wave of Cash Money artists, UNLV did not benefit from the historic multimillion dollar Cash Money/Universal deal. Not only that, but when Cash Money did go national, they took UNLV’s catalog with them and started to distribute it nationally to the post-“Ha” masses who were hungry for anything Mannie Fresh had produced. Meanwhile, UNLV weren’t seeing a dime. UNLV ended up suing Cash Money for their catalog and finally acquiring it via out-of-court settlement in 2007. This victory may not equate to putting 100 on Duke in the championships, but I’m always happy to see independent artists overcome the infamous Industry Rule #4080 even if it does take 10 years. So rest in peace to Yella, and shout out to Tec and Ya: the Uptown Niggas Legally Victorious. Runnin’ Rebels, indeed.

Up next: the 1993 Cash Money crusade continues…