You may have no idea what you’ll be eating for Thanksgiving dinner, but hundreds of Liberty City residents know for sure that turkey will be on their holiday menu. Monday afternoon, Cash Money Records’ CEOs and brothers Ronald “Slim” Williams and Bryan “Birdman” Williams teamed up with 99 Jamz, Fat Joe, and DJ Khaled for the 2nd Annual Turkey Giveaway. All afternoon, the Hip-Hop conglomerate handed out birds to grateful residents who showered them with “Thank you’s” and “Bless You’s” while hip-hop and R&B rocked in the background.
The Cash Money Boys have been doing this for years in their hometown of New Orleans, but ever since relocating to Miami they’ve been spreading the fowl love to South Florida. “Coming up, we didn’t always have a good Thanksgiving, so me and my brother talked about it and we said we gonna do something that’s gonna make a bunch of people happy, kids, families,” said Slim. “We wanted to show Miami the way we do things in New Orleans because this is part our home now so we wanted to show them the same love we show New Orleans.”
Of course there were a few folks who seemed to be more interested in MySpace photo ops over gratis poultry, but for the most part the day was about filling bellies, not autograph books. “You got mothers, you got grandmothers, you got fathers who gotta feed they family, that’s it,” said Fat Joe. “And they’re waiting on line to get a turkey and it’s ‘Oh by the way, Fat Joe here. Oooh. Alright Fat Joe gave me a turkey, cool.’ But it's more like ‘Yo, I’m tryna feed my family.’”
But as much as the community is grateful for the charity, the celebs seemed just as pleased to help. During this time of year, you often hear of celebrities doing things to “give back,” but after witnessing the scene at Hadley Park, you get the impression that the Cash Money Brothers, Fat Joe, and DJ Khaled truly wanted to give back – no quotations needed. “You know, I’m from the hood, and knowing that a lot of people aint as fortunate as we are, we want to see at least Thanksgiving when everybody can be happy.” said Birdman. “I just like to see everybody else enjoy it.” --Raina McLeod
