Beneath the hum of fluorescent lights, Juvenile pauses mid-negotiation, flips his camera, and offers a grin that feels equal parts fatherly pride and rap-legend cool. The 50-year-old is in Louisiana, finalizing the purchase of a vehicle for one of his children.
“Let me show you where I’m at. I’m at the car dealership buying your nephew a fucking car,” he tells Mannie Fresh, eliciting a bellow of laughter from the esteemed beatsmith.
A product of New Orleans’ notorious Magnolia Projects, Juvie shrugs off the gesture as a reality of fatherhood. “It’s his world,” the veteran hitmaker says of his son, rapper Young Juve. “I made him give his car to his little brother. I ain’t want his little brother with no brand-new car. I’m scared. I’m like ‘Bro, you’ve got to start off with that and then you move up.’”
Hundreds of miles away in Houston, Mannie has logged in from the comfort of his home studio — the same creative sanctuary that now doubles as the de facto headquarters for Still 400 — The Mannie & Juvie Show. The podcast’s title nods to Juvenile’s 1998 opus, 400 Degreez, produced entirely by Mannie and widely regarded as the catalyst that propelled Cash Money Records onto the national stage.
While reunion chatter surrounding former Hot Boys members and label leadership has often been overshadowed by tension, Juvie and Mannie have largely avoided the fray, choosing instead to build something new.
“We don’t have a network yet,” Juvie says, expressing their plans to grow their platform organically. We’ll get there.” Mannie echoes his partner’s sentiment: “We started the way we always started.”
Still 400 is by no means an indicator that Juvenile and Mannie Fresh are putting music on the back burner, as the pair both have multiple projects and placements dropping in 2026. Juvenile is currently gearing up for his highly anticipated album, Boiling Point, which is slated to drop in March on his 51st birthday.
Mannie, on the other hand, is focused on a slew of collaborative efforts, from credits on Boiling Point to a series of album releases with Southern rap royalty. “The usual suspects,” Mannie Fresh says when asked of the collaborations we can expect to hear from him in 2026.
“I still got stuff with [Lil] Wayne that has come out. That’s supposed to be on some deluxe stuff or however they’re doing it. TI, you know, just my regular people. Juvenile, who I’ve always done beats for,” he says. “And this year, I’m doing Reckless Weekend. That’s my projects that I’m doing with artists such as Juvenile, Scarface, 8-Ball, and MJG. What it means is, we’re going to do these songs in a weekend. Whatever we come out with, that’s what we’re putting out.I’ll do it Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That’s why I’m calling it Reckless Weekend.”
Yet, for now, Juvenile and Mannie Fresh are coming in hot with Still 400, as the dynamic duo continue to build on their legacy while breaking new ground.
From showroom floors to studio boards, Still 400 feels less like a nostalgia play and more like a living extension of their chemistry — two architects of a Southern sound stepping into media with the same candor, craftsmanship, and commitment to growth that first put them on the map, now channeling insight and positivity directly to their listeners and viewers.
What would you say are five biggest pieces of advice for someone starting a podcast?
Mannie Fresh: Man, that’s kind of difficult for me because I didn’t even see this in our future, but I think to stay authentic to what you want to do. There are so many copycats, especially with this. Try to be as original as you can. And know your audience, that’s number two.
Number three, pay attention to the feedback from your audience. Number four, get people who know what they’re doing. We see a lot of podcasts, and it’s just a couple of homeboys that got together and they just kind of throw something together and they’re like, “OK, why isn’t it resonating?” Because it takes a team of professionals as well to make it work. You’ve got to get people who really, really know what they’re doing to make it something special. And lastly, try to be diverse with your guests. You don’t want it to be one-dimensional, even if my partner and I sometimes disagree on how we want to go.
But the thing that’s kind of cool about ours is we’re not trying to stick to one element or one type of person or thing. We’re trying to do it well-rounded, from athletes, athletes’ parents, rappers, rappers’ parents, and doctors. People who inform you. From music people that are people that you never get a chance to talk, BMI, ASCAP, the publishing people, and all of that.
I wanted to be well-educated in whatever our realm is, because sometimes you get things that you don’t know how it happened. It’s like a doctor, you know? Nobody knows what a doctor had to do to become a doctor. So let’s get to the middle of how that happened and let them explain it, so you can really know if this is a field you want to pursue.
Juvenile: My first thing was to learn the business side. Second is be creative, and don’t be afraid to share yourself, share some of your personal experiences. My third thing would be it’s always great when it’s not about you, and I think that’s the great thing about this platform. You’re opening up the eyes of the fan who never saw you in this light. [They] probably thought you were some old dick stuck in the corner or some shit like that.
Four, make sure you’re getting people that’s really relevant on your show. If you’re going to be doing interviews and having people come on your show, make sure they’re coming on your show and they’re telling facts and not lies. And fifth would be to keep family involved, no matter [what] you’re doing, podcast or not. That’s why it’s so great that I’m doing it with my brother.
When did the thought first manifest to start the podcast?
Juvenile: Damn, like a whole year ago, bro. Like I say, when it’s business, we all have to iron out everything. And it was something that we had no experience in, something that we knew nothing about. So we had to do our due diligence on finding out how it works. And I just think as far as where we’re at now and where we’re headed, I think we’re going in a great direction.
Mannie Fresh: We had to do our homework on it. We had to figure it out, and do it to the best of our abilities. And we made up our mind what we wanted our show to be about, it was going to be a little bit different from what everybody else has done. We wanted to stay on a positive note with everything that we were doing. That was big to us, and even that sometimes is hard, resonating to people who work with you. Where we go and [say], “Look, we really mean this. Y’all could rewrite it 17 times. We ain’t going to do it that way. We’re going to do exactly how we said we were going to do it.” And it took a while for us to all iron all of that out. But as he said, we had it in a good position, good places and good spaces.
Juvenile: Yep. And the stars are stepping out, man. We’ve got some podcasts getting ready to come out. We’re stepping our game up and we’re going to continue to step our game up. So we’re going from this to ginormous, you know what I’m saying? And I just love it, man. I’m getting a kick out of it, honestly.
What was the inspiration behind you starting the podcast?
Juvenile: Oh, definitely watching the other cats do their thing. Definitely. Shout out to my guy N.O.R.E. Seeing Joe and Jada doing their thing, I think that’s great for hip-hop, seeing the hip-hop heads get involved. I saw Willie D on the podcast. N.O.R.E., Joe Budden. Seeing cats like that from my era doing stuff like that, doing something that’s different. I think they’re creating something that’s probably bigger than some of the radio stations. It’s another platform for artists to go in to promote the albums and their movies, their books, or whatever else they have. I think this whole podcast thing is really about to be something even bigger in a minute.
You mentioned earlier that the seed for this was planted about a year ago. Y’all were doing the Cash Money reunion tour at that time, so did that help get the ball rolling?
Mannie Fresh: I think, with us, what really helps was before we did the reunion thing, me and Juvie was on tour. And we actually got to see, in real time, the connection with the fans. We don’t even consider them fans now, we consider them family. We got to see the connection on what they expect, what they want to see from us, what they like, and we just figured out a way to give it to them. One of the great things about Still 400 is that we ask the questions that you always wanted to know from artists. You always want to know how we made that song. What was the movement behind some of these incredible things that happened? And that’s the connection right there. A lot of people want to know. Like, “Wow, what was y’all thinking when y’all came up with that?” Not just from us, from a lot of artists.
Juvenile: The other great thing about our show is we’re not the only ones asking the questions. A lot of cats come on the show, and they’ve got questions for us, so we leave the mic kind of open so they could express some of the things that they want to talk about and ask the questions that they want to ask. So, the show is Still 400, the Mannie and Juvie show, but it’s really the people who come on there, too.
Are y’all still doing this indie or are y’all partnering with a partner?
Juvenile: I don’t know what you call indie in this space yet. Let’s keep it there right now. I hate to answer questions that I really don’t have a knowledge of answering. I’ve still got to try and get my tutelage on what independent really is in this business. If you’re asking us, are we owners? Oh, hell yeah.
How would you say that your personalities and roles translate in this dynamic?
Mannie Fresh: This has always been us, now you get to see it. You get to see it on camera, and I think the world was waiting for that, too, because one of the great things that resonates with Still 400 and Mannie and Juvie — people get to see that we are people just like them. We clown around, we joke around, we do everything. I don’t know when it stopped being cool to have fun.
Juvenile: We have fun on our show.
Mannie Fresh: We have big fun.
Juvenile: We really give guests speeches before the mic and the cameras come on and we tell them things like, “Hey bro, this show ain’t about the stresses or things that you’re mad about in life, or the artist that you got a problem with and you’re beefing with. This platform ain’t for that. This platform is about the fun things and the great things that is happening in life. And of course we want to back you up on whatever you got going on and whatever you’re promoting, but no negativity. We ain’t with that.”
I think a lot of cats building up their platforms, and I’m not going to criticize them, but when you build your platform up on negativity, that’s what you get. And you can’t get mad when it gets turned back at you.
You’ve got people from all sides as guests, but people definitely want to see your Cash Money brothers on there.
Juvenile: Actually, we tried to make Birdman and Slim the first show when we were in [Las] Vegas. But the damn walk was so long when we set up. Just imagine us having to walk down the two miles to get to set… It was just too much. So we got them almost there. But I talked to Birdman and Slim the other day. They’re definitely going to do the show.
I think we’re going to have to go down to Miami and do that. And in the process of doing that, we’re going to fly B.G. down and get him. But we’re definitely going to do the Cash Money family, Wayne, everybody. Trust me. We’re definitely getting the family on there.
Yeah, that’d definitely be epic. Do y’all do the show in the same space, and how do you handle the logistics?
Mannie Fresh: It started in the same space, but now we go wherever. Wherever we’re needed, we go and get it. A lot of times, you’ve got regions and we’ve learned we have a region. We are Louisiana, so we do Louisiana. We got to go to Georgia, then we’re going to do Atlanta and everything around there to get it. We’ve got to go to New York. We’re going to make sure we get all the New York artists while we’re up there. So we travel and go and get them. We’ll come to you if you don’t come to us.
Juvenile: Exactly. We did Houston, New Orleans, and Atlanta so far. So you can just think of who we got on the show. And our next stop, I think we’re going to do Atlanta again ’cause we didn’t finish. It was a lot of people on our list we didn’t even get to on our Atlanta list, so we’re going to get a spot in Atlanta. We’ve got a spot of course at Mannie Fresh [space] in Houston. Mannie Fresh spot was really like the headquarters. That’s really where we shot the first few shows at. But we’re just moving around [doing] whatever works.
Do you plan on showcasing up-and-coming artists on the show?
Juvenile: We just let one up-and-coming artist perform on the show that we have yet to show yet, on the Mardi Gras show. But yes, we definitely want the artists coming and we definitely want them to come on the show and know that our show is not just an interviewing platform. You can perform on our show. If you’ve got something new, we want to hear that shit.
That’s a dope wrinkle that you’ve got with the performances.
Juvenile: Not just that, we have the live band on set. Like, you have a show. After we do this little tour that we’re doing, after we finish doing these run-arounds, we’re going to be stationary and we’re going to have our band on the show all the time. Because you know me and Mannie, we do live band sets. So people are going to love that. People are going to love when they see that.
Mannie Fresh: One of the things — I mean, me and Juvie haven’t even talked about this yet, but we would want to give some of our favorite artists that platform, since we have a band that can adjust to anybody. You know, our band is there, and they can adjust. So, for instance, if we have 8Ball and MJG on our show, we would love to give them the platform to do something like a Tiny Desk, to do five or six songs right there on that platform, you know what I’m saying? And just to keep that music going. One of the most important things about Still 400 is that we are bridging the gap between what you call an older emcee and a younger emcee, or whatever you want to call it. Older rapper, younger rapper, we’re fixing that shit. We don’t bash him. We ain’t got nothing bad to say. We’re just trying to figure out what happened and where the mess-up is between that. So, as he said, we welcome new music, and we welcome new artists.
And the reason why we welcome them is because somewhere somebody said, “Old dudes don’t get along with young dudes, and young dudes don’t get along with old dudes.” Not on our show. We get along with everybody.
Did y’all run into any challenges or hurdles while trying to get this off the ground?
Juvenile: Yeah, logistically, you’ve got to remember we’re both businessmen and we both have families. I’ve got all these damn companies, and I’ve got to wear all these different hats and show up at all these different meetings. So it’s hard for us to show up for three or four days and do eight or nine shows sometimes, so we’re figuring it out. Just like he said. But just like every other show, shit, nothing’s perfect, but we’re going to make it look good on the screen, brother.
How are you measuring the success of the podcast?
Juvenile: Oh, I can answer that one for you. Hey, long as we’ve got somebody spending some money with us, you understand? We’ve got some endorsement deals on the table and we got more than we had last month and it keeps going up. We’re doing good. That’s how you know, bro. I don’t know no other number. I don’t know how to check the numbers and shit, but I do know we’ve been making some money.
Mannie Fresh: People checking for us.
Juvenile: Yeah. Our subscribers went up a little bit, man. So they’re checking for us, man. They really are.
You mentioned having the live band and having the artists come on. Are there other ways that you see Still 400 growing over time?
Mannie Fresh: We’re going to take it one step at a time, you know? Every time we shoot a new show is a challenge, and we rise to the occasion and we do what we got to do. So I think we’re going to take it one step at a time. Of course, we can improve, but that’s our job, that’s our business, that’s what we do. We improve, and we go get the check.
Juvenile: Yeah, I’ve never had a job that was perfect. Nothing’s perfect, but you can work towards perfection and that’s what we’re doing. We’re just trying to make our show, if not the best, one of the best shows and expand and open people’s minds, other cats’ minds that come after us that’s doing podcasts. We can really turn these podcasts into regular talk shows like they do on TV on CBS and NBC and Fox and all these other broadcasting places. You’ve just got to do it the right way.
Well, speaking to that, do you see the podcast space being a lane for artists to maintain a connection with their fanbase through the years or giving them added life?
Juvenile: That question probably is better for somebody that had no successes, right? But I ain’t have a dull moment, even when I stepped away from putting albums out. I’ve toured the whole entire while, I never had a break. Thank God for “Back Dat Azz Up,” [but] I just don’t get no fucking break. I ain’t experienced it, so I don’t know, man. To each his own, but for me, I just haven’t been through that.
For the younger generation it does. It keeps me relevant. Like the dude said when he saw Ice Cube, right? I said, “Yeah, man, Ice Cube was one of the most gangster rappers ever.” He said, “You talking about the nigga who’s in the Friday movies?” I’m like, “Yeah, that nigga was a fucking killer.”
Mannie Fresh: Mean-mug number one, nigga.
Juvenile: He was YoungBoy of our generation. Ice Cube was the fucking NBA YoungBoy, then Pac came, but he was. So maybe they’ll look at me like that in that light and be like, “Man, when Juvie came about…” Yeah, I like a little props.
Mannie Fresh: We like staying relevant. Put it like that [laughs].
Juvenile: But I can say this. I can say this about me. What keeps me relevant is I always do music, right? And I’m always recording with young guys. Like, me and Rob49 got an album that we’re getting ready to drop after I drop my album. So, I’m always doing something.
How did you and Rob49 link?
Juvenile: That’s like a nephew, like my son, man. I was talking about my son, that’s my son’s partner, right? So he’s like a nephew of mine. All these cats down here in New Orleans, man, they really like fam to me and they’ve been around me for a long [time]. Like Jay Jones, who’s with Young Money, that’s one of my son’s friends. So they all spread and sprinkle around here, but they’ve all been around me in some kind of way.
What’s it like seeing the new class of artists from your home state carrying on the legacy?
Juvenile: I love it. And the fact that YoungBoy is making an extra step now to start fucking with his state and going back and mending some of those bad, I guess, experiences he had in life. He’s growing up, bro. He’s growing up, and I just like seeing it. I like seeing the love. I like seeing my people together. I don’t like seeing the separation, I’ve really got a problem with that. I’m loving it, bro.
Do you see yourselves branching off into live shows with Still 400?
Mannie Fresh: Oh, yeah. We’ll definitely do it that way. I mean, you know, there’s nothing that scared the Batman and Robin duo. You know what I’m saying? You might as well look at me and Juvie like that. So if it’s a live audience and we’re doing it, that’s good. We ain’t tripping on it.
Juvenile: That’s our thing. That’s really what we want. Fresh wants to do that talk-box live.
Mannie Fresh: That’s easy breezy. We’re actually better with people. We are.
Juvenile: We are. For me, I kind of thrive off performing live. I really get a kick out of that shit. I think the live band thing is just me. I know it doesn’t fit everybody, but for Mannie and me, I think that’s us all day. Then the fact that we done did a couple of tours doing this shit, these are actual factuals.
Mannie Fresh: If Still 400 turns into a TV show and we’ve got a live band and live audience, so be it. We’re ready for it.
Juvenile: So be it. That’s what we want, so that’s what we’re shooting for. Let’s say that, too. That’s what we’re shooting for.
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This article originally appeared on Rolling Stone.
