Heading into 1993, early New Orleans Bounce had somewhat skirted around drug culture, aside from the occasional mention of selling crack, being affiliated with those who sold it, or deriding those foolish enough to smoke it. True, Mr. Juvey had closed out his 1992 debut “Bounce for the Juvenile” pledging allegiance to the cannabis sativa. (“Yes I smoke weed, and that’s it, black / So don’t gimme none, don’t want none, don’t gimme none, don’t want no crack / One cigarette and a 40 of Snake / And a fire weed spliff will just make my day.”) But even after Dr. Dre had changed the game by introducing the G-Funk sound with a whole album named after the “chronic”, no one in New Orleans had yet dedicated an entire song to weed culture. So it was, ahem, high time someone did, and answering the call was 4th Ward outfit P.M.W., consisting of Big Man and Freak Nasty.

“I got some red-assed sess and some big ole buds / And I keep a little skunk stash under my rugs / Quarter bags, twenties, dimes and keys / Rollin’ like a motherfucker makin’ them G’s…”

“Splift Out” (the lead single from P.M.W.’s 1992 debut EP Home Grown which reappeared as a slightly different version on their 1993 debut album Legalize “Pass The Weed”) came out at a perfect time to scandalize my youth. My little sheltered Catholic school self really didn’t know anything about marijuana until I was indoctrinated by the likes of Redman, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and P.M.W. (Shout out to Spice 1, whose 1992 song “187 Pure” inventively told a whole story with personified marijuana paraphernalia, just as he’d done with liquor brands on “187 Proof”.) “Splift Out” had so many specific references to weed paraphernalia that I’m surprised to this day by how much relatively uncensored radio play it got, even in a town as irreverent as New Orleans.

The song rides a smooth-assed sample of “Don’t Look Any Further” by Dennis Edwards. So when Junior Mafia used the same sample on 1995’s “Get Money” remix (which ‘Pac in turn flipped to diss Biggie and his crew on 1996’s “Hit ‘Em Up”) and the wider rap world went wild, NOLA knew better. We’d been smokin’ and ridin’ to that sample for a few years already, so we figured Biggie was borrowing from Big Man.

“’Cause ain’t no nigga like a bombed-out nigga ‘cause a sober-ass nigga ain’t shiiiiit…”

You’ll also notice the samples of Bounce standards “Drag Rap” and “Brown Beats”. But to me the most memorable things about this song were Big Man’s lyrics and delivery, so straightforward in their irreverence as to be outright humorous. (Notice Big Man’s spoofing Jimi’s “sliiiiide and do the P-Pop” when he says “Sliiiide and pass the weed, nigga”.) As Bounce artists went, Big Man was actually a pretty strong rapper with a steady flow and decent lyrical ability. (This would be showcased even more on the second P.M.W. full-length, 1994’s High Life, on which Big Man held his own on a song with no less than revered Underground King Bun B.) Big Man had this gift for (ahem) blunt humor which allowed him to say some pretty ridiculous things while seeming serious.

“Magnolia buds and Columbia sess /
This is what they find when I take a piss test /
And if I don’t work, I’ma smoke me a spliff /
And tell the white man he could suck my dick /
Pass that weed to the next nigga…”

The original version of the song starts by cutting off Everlasting Hitman’s “Bounce Baby Bounce” while the album version does the same thing with Bust Down’s “Putcha Bally’s On”. I never really knew what that was about. Guess P.M.W. had some beef with the West Bank.

“Yo, 5-0 comin’! It’s 5-0!”
“Fuck 5-0; I’ll give that bitch a weed, too.”

P.M.W. stood for “Pussy, Money and Weed” (don’t buy that discogs.com story about “Project’s Most Wanted”), and they stayed rather consistent with those themes. The weed part was obvious, and money pretty much permeated the music (with the reasoning that you couldn’t get the other two without it). Pussy? See “Roshambeau” (which misspells but otherwise perfectly tributes the seedy Rochambeau Hotel, that infamous 3rd Ward haven for sexual misadventures, over a sample of my favorite Anita Baker song “Angel”) and “Alphabet Bitches” (on which Big Man hilariously proves that he has a “bitch” for every letter of the alphabet).

Freak Nasty would leave the group after High Life to pursue a solo career as a recording artist and producer. He is best known for his 1997 hit “Da Dip” which Cardi B referenced some 20 years later in her #1 hit “Bodak Yellow” when she said: “I put my hand above my hip; I bet you dip, he dip, she dip.”

After coming out with their indie EP, P.M.W. had their first two full-length albums executive produced by Uptown New Orleans brothers Ronald and Bryan Williams. Bryan had recorded an album of his own called I Need a Bag of Dope under the alias B-32, which was short for “Bryan with the 32 Gold Teeth”, but the world would come to know him as Baby. Since “Money” was literally P.M.W.’s middle name, it was only fitting that they signed with the Williams’ label, which was called Cash Money Records. Cash Money would go on to have quite an impact on the music industry at large, but in 1993 they were still establishing their impact within the local New Orleans Bounce sound, and they would do so with another acronymically named group which you can’t talk about New Orleans rap without mentioning.

Coming up: “The U is for Uptown / The N is for Niggas / The L is for Livin’ / The V is for Violent / Fuckin’ violent…”