Birdman truly believes in giving back to the community, and he is preparing for the 19th annual turkey giveaway he hosts with Cash Money. This year, the label CEO plans to make stops in New Orleans and Atlanta after launching a reading campaign earlier this month.
During a recent interview, Birdman told XXL the annual giveaway started out of desperation and a desire to help others.
"I used to go in the store and me and my friends would go in the store and run out with all the turkeys. And be like, 'F--k it.' You heard me? And go bring them back into the project. We had no food. Nobody had nothing to eat," he said. "So we'll go in there, take the turkeys, have some of the females go get the dressings. And we go in the projects and we stay in a circle. And we feed the whole circle. We gonna do that shit like Monday through Friday until they really stop letting us in the muthaf--ka."
In 18 years, he has given away almost 50,000 turkeys.
"And then I said when I get some money, I'ma feed my projects. Feed where I come from. When I did get some money, I was 18 years old, 17 years old, making 18 when I signed with Universal for $30 million. When I did get some money, I just go and get as many as we can. Then we just made it out of an event. I get the whole Universal staff. Everybody come down and we get as many as we can possibly get, as they allow us to buy," he said.
Earlier this month, it was reported Cash Money's Content Division kicked off a campaign called #IRead #WeRead in order to bring awareness to one of the biggest problems affecting children today.
"Reading is an important step in the right direction toward making a difference in our community," Slim, Birdman's brother and co-founder of Cash Money Records and Cash Money Content, said. "Let's encourage our communities to read."
A press release for the campaign urges people to share books, links and articles with the hashtags #IRead and #WeRead.
Cash Money Content is a partnership between Cash Money Records and Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.
Look out for the Cash Money 19th Annual Turkey Giveaway next month.
