Sqad Up

Sqad Up was an American hip hop group from New Orleans, Louisiana. The group originally consisted of rappers Lil Wayne, Gudda Gudda, Kidd Kidd, T-Streets, Raw Dizzy, Young Yo, Sha Tura, Fee Banks, Supa Blanco and Chad Gilbreath aka SoulReaveR was the in house producer along with Raj Smoove. In 2004, Sqad Up released their debut album, Now or Never on their independent label, Money Yung'N Records.

History[]

1999–2006: Formation, early releases and separation[]

In the late 1990s, Lil Wayne met Young Yo in high school and became close friends. Young Yo and Lil Wayne's mutual interest in hip hop culture and fashion was obvious early on, "I was always fly and fresh when I was younger and that's how me and Wayne got jam tight. He was already rappin' but his shit wasn't really poppin... It was B.G.'s time then. When Juve[ile] came on board and they got the Cash Money and Universal deal Wayne had to go on the road and he asked me to go on tour with him", says Yo. Yo, realized the opportunity in front of him, so decided to call his brother Supa Blanco, who at the time was playing college ball in Arizona, and ask him to join them on the road.^[1]

Dino Delvaille, who at the time was the Universal Records A&R known with bringing the Cash Money Records situation to the table, began urging Yo and Blanco to start rapping. When they returned off tour with, Yo, Blanco, and Wayne decided to start Sqad Up with some of their close friends from New Orleans which were Nutt da Kidd, Gudda Gudda, T-Streets, Raw Dizzy, and Fee Banks. When Wayne was fifteen, he met Gudda at a dice game and said, "you should be rappin', you been through a lot".^[2] Throughout 2002 and 2003, they released seven parts of the SQ series being one of the first groups to start doing mixtapes in New Orleans.^[1]

In 2004, Sqad Up decided to work on their debut album, but the CEO of Cash Money, Birdman, did not feel that they were there yet. Because of that, they never signed to Cash Money and created their own label, Money Yung'N Records. Lil Wayne left the group and stayed with Birdman taking his advice.^[3] After that, Sqad Up started to have beef with B.G. and Lil Wayne.^[4] They released several diss tracks on their mixtapes and Lil Wayne and B.G. did the same thing. On June 22, 2004, Sqad Up released their debut album, Now or Never.^[5] In 2006, they met rapper Lil' Flip at The Source Awards and he said he was a fan of their music. They ended up releasing a couple of mixtapes on Lil Flip's independent record label, Clover G'z Records. That same year, Sqad Up went on a number of tours to support their sophomore album We Here Now, but it was never released and the group disbanded.^[6][7]

2015–present: Reunion[]

In July 2015, Raw Dizzy posted a picture on Instagram that read, "The Original Sqad Up Re-union Album" and tagged all the original Sqad Up members.^[8] In September 2015, Lil Wayne brought out Raw Dizzy, Kidd Kidd, and Gudda Gudda to perform, "We Ready", "Guess Who's Ready", and "Best of Me" at his Lil Weezyana Fest in New Orleans. In January 2016, someone named A$AP Retro asked Raw Dizzy in an Instagram direct message if the project is still being worked on, Raw Dizzy replied: "We working on doing it fam".^[9] On April 6, 2016, Dizzy released a single called "Heaven" featuring Lil Wayne. Sources say the song might end up on the Sqad Up reunion album.^[10]

Discography[]

Studio albums[]

Mixtapes[]

References[]

External links[]

• Sqad Up at AllMusic
• Sqad Up discography at Discogs