#Socialites, do you agree with Jermaine Dupri? The Hip-Hop legend is claiming that he started the “make it rain” trend in strip clubs, noting it all began with his and JAY-Z‘s “Money Ain’t A Thang” music video.
While celebrating 50 years of Hip-Hop and 30 years of So So Def Recordings, the label’s head honcho recently sat down with Apple Music’s ‘The Estelle Show.’ During the interview, Dupri recalled “making it rain” back in the ’90s and noted how he was the first to really start the still-popular trend.
Dupri remembered how Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli had come down to Atlanta for the first time, and ended up at Magic City with him and Janet Jackson. Dupri said once they all got settled inside the infamous strip club, they started throwing bills into the air.
Dupri then explained that in the music video for his song “Money Ain’t A Thang” with JAY-Z, he introduced “making it rain.” The single arrived off Dupri’s 1998 LP ‘Life in 1472;’ and although the song never used the exact phrase “make it rain,” it did feature the lyric, “Drop a little paper / Baby, toss it up.”
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Dupri said, “I actually was the person who created this because I did this first in the ‘Money Ain’t A Thang’ video. Me and JAY-Z are in the car throwing money throughout the whole video. That became my thing with that song. That became my thing going into these strip clubs.”
However, the Hip-Hop mogul admitted that the dancers at the club didn’t really have a positive reaction as everyone does today.
He said, “I remember going to the club throwing the money. The first time I ever threw the money in the air, I probably threw $1,000 on the floor. And the girl at the strip club said, ‘You want me to get down on the floor and get my money?’ She didn’t understand what was happening. I tried this a couple of places where I was out throwing money and…they didn’t understand what was happening. And this is just my confirmation of me saying, ‘I know that I was the first person doing this.’”
Elsewhere, the origin of the phrase “make it rain,” is still up in the air. While Dupri takes credit for creating the trend in the ’90s, Fat Joe and Lil Wayne enter the conversation with their 2006 hit “Make It Rain,” which is noted as one of the earliest examples of the phrase being used commercially.
We also see Atlanta rap trio Travis Porter enter the chat with their 2010 hit “Make It Rain,” and also Lil Jon‘s own 2010 song “Act A Fool,” which further used the term, making it even more mainstream. Then in 2011, Young Jeezy spoke with Rolling Stone about being credited by DJ Drama for inventing “making it rain.”
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He said, “I’mma be real, man, this might sound like the craziest thing to you. I, and others like me, trap stars, we always considered ourselves Robin Hoods: we go out and get the money. Just think, if you was in the village and you a hunter, you take pride in going out to hunt the prey and bring it back for the village to eat.”
He added, “In our situation, we took pride in getting money so that the hood could eat. A part of the hood was the strip club, so, in our minds, we looking at it like we putting kids through school, we buying school clothes, we paying tuition, we paying car notes. We felt like we was the providers. And that’s what we are!”
Jeezy continued, “When you a ghetto star, when you a hood star, you gonna take care of your grandmother, your mother. When you on that next level, you gotta take care of the city, the streets. All of that consists of going to the strip clubs and throwing up money; like, I’mma have fun doing it, but I’mma give back. And in doing so, they don’t gotta take the risks that we did. The women shouldn’t have to go out and kill the goddamn elk.”
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