The success of "Soulja Rag" had been a commercial step up for Cash Money Records. Producer Mannie Fresh had rejuvenated the label, and Juvenile had become their first major star. With national attention looming, the indie label was eyeing a lucrative distribution deal with Universal Records. Cash Money was about to making serious bank, and Juvenile was primed to become an even bigger breakout star.

The way Cash Money Records took over for the 99 and the 2000 may seem like a foregone conclusion in hindsight; or it may seem like 400 Degreez was a simple overnight sensation. Neither was actually the case. But the seeds were sown for the ...Degreez the year before.

“I remember a lot about making ‘Ha.’ I intentionally was trying to make a song like ‘Soulja Rag’ so when I made ‘Ha,’ it was a little easier than ‘Soulja Rag.’ I had to think ‘Would this work?’ when I made ‘Soulja Rag.’ But ‘Ha,’ I pretty much freestyled.

“We was in Nashville and got in the studio down there. One thing I really remember was that it was snowing like crazy. You know that don’t happen that often in Nashville. I don’t know if they still have them, but I had pictures of us standing outside the studio the same day I recorded ‘Ha’. That was the day my creative juices were flowing. Everything I said, I’m still hearing it now today.

“But it took a minute [to reach New York] because I remember coming up here and no one knew who I was. I was trying to tell people who I was and they was like, ‘I never heard of you.’ I came back four months later and couldn’t come out my hotel without getting mobbed. That was crazy to me. And it was all off of the same record."

"Juvenile’s 400 Degreez was the album that opened the floodgates," wrote Jeffrey Harvey. "The first release following an unprecedented partnership between the formerly independent label and Universal Music Group, the transcendent third offering from Cash Money’s first franchise player was lightening in a jewel case. It gave a shellshocked Hip-Hop nation exactly the respite it didn’t know it needed: a N’Awlins excursion."

By the end of 1998, everything was changing.

“That was the icing on the cake," Juvie would tell COMPLEX years later. "It’s the song that I didn’t think would make it because it’s Bounce music. I have been doing Bounce music for years and it just went regional. It never went mainstream. I didn’t think people in New York and L.A.—people that weren’t from my area or are used to this kind of music—would like it. It just blew up. I was shocked. I always thought ‘Ha’ was going to be the song to really blow me over, but it was ‘Back That Azz Up’."