400 Degreez (1998)

400 Degreez is the third studio album by American rapper Juvenile. The album was released on November 3, 1998, by Universal Records and Bryan "Baby" Williams' Cash Money Records. It was solely produced by Cash Money's in-house producer, Mannie Fresh.

400 Degreez is a hip-hop album that also takes influence from the bounce music scene of New Orleans, the home city of both Juvenile and Cash Money. It discusses life in New Orleans' Magnolia Projects in both humorous and dark ways at different points. The album is well known for its successful singles, "Ha" and "Back That Azz Up", which peaked at numbers 68 and 19 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100. 400 Degreez itself was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the Billboard 200 and number two on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It additionally peaked atop the latter chart for its Year-End list of 1999 and won the Billboard Music Award for Top R&B Album the same year. According to Cash Money's founder, Birdman, the album sold 30,000 copies in its first week.

The album received quadruple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on December 19, 2000, and it has become Juvenile's best-selling solo album. 400 Degreez has also been acclaimed as a highly influential album upon Southern hip-hop, both for inspiring later Southern hip-hop artists and for introducing distinctively Southern styles to the hip-hop mainstream. It has been recognized among the best albums of its kind by outlets such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Consequence, and The Ringer.

Background and recording

Juvenile released Solja Rags, his second overall album and first on Cash Money Records, in 1997. Based on the regional success of Solja Rags, as well as of other Cash Money projects, the label attracted the attention of Universal Records. Universal subsequently signed a manufacturing and distribution deal with Cash Money, in which Cash Money retained full ownership of the rights to the music and received 85% of the royalties; according to author Keith Spera, "Universal would essentially be paid a commission to make, move and market Cash Money CDs." 400 Degreez was the first album that Cash Money Records released through this arrangement.

Juvenile has described the recording process of 400 Degreez as "like ... a job", explaining that all of Cash Money's artists would go to the studio daily and record music for whichever artist's album was scheduled next. Mannie Fresh, the album's sole producer, recounts that the songs would originate with their lyrics and that he would subsequently compose beats that would match their rhythm; he also notes that, because of this recording structure, many of the songs on 400 Degreez include verses with irregular durations. In contrast to other Cash Money rappers, Juvenile wrote his own hooks on 400 Degreez.

A deluxe version of 400 Degreez was released on March 29, 2024, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the album. It adds two bonus tracks, "Party" and "We Be Blowing Money".

Content

Juvenile's primary topic on 400 Degreez is life in New Orleans, a subject that he approaches from both lighthearted and serious angles at different points on the album. The tonal blend has led the album to be described as balancing "humor and street smarts", as being "as fun as it is bleak", and as having an overarching "swaggering but paranoid" mood. Rashad D. Grove of Revolt.tv portrays the majority of the album as "full of gritty, grim street tales about murder, hustling, paranoia, [and] loyalty", but also acknowledges that Juvenile "finds a way to enjoy the fruits of his labor" on some tracks. MtumeS of RapReviews appraises the album's principal subjects as "wine, women, [and] weapons", and opines that its goal is to be pure entertainment rather than "trying to stimulate, provoke, or educate". Pitchfork's Paul A. Thompson argues for the more lighthearted elements of 400 Degreez as being most central to the album's sound: he argues that "Juve's songwriting is, at its resting state, playful, buoyant, full of asides and knowing advice", and that it shifts into darker moods for only "brief spurts".

Juvenile's performance attracted attention not just for its content but its delivery, which has been described as "comfortably bridg[ing] the gap between Mannie's bounce beats and more straightforward rap styles". He has been described as deploying "melodic lyrics" and a "signature sing-songy flow" on the album, and as having an "elastic" voice. Juvenile was also identified as making heavy use of New Orleans' accent and local slang. Critic Kelefa Sanneh commented that Juvenile "didn't seem particularly worried about making himself understood" and prioritized showing off local styles rather than pursuing wider appeal. Similarly, MtumeS of RapReviews characterized him as speaking in a "lazy-tongued drawl" and using vocabulary with "no written equivalent or precise meaning".