LIL' BOW WOW ANNOUNCES SCREAM 2 TOUR; TOUR SUPPORTS HIT ALBUM 'DOGGY BAG' AND 'LIKE MIKE' FILM DEBUT

 

With Doggy Bag, his sophomore album on So So Def/Columbia Records, hitting the RIAA platinum mark, Lil Bow Wow is about to launch his Scream 2 U.S. tour, the eagerly-awaited follow-up to last year's sold out and highly successful Scream Tour. Scream 2 will kick-off on Thursday, July 25 in Memphis, TN (see itinerary following).

 

Since the success of Beware Of Dog, released in 2000, Lil Bow Wow has become a household name. The album debuted at #8 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart and kicked out the #1 Rap single "Bow Wow (That's My Name)." Two of Bow Wow's videos -- "That's My Name" and "Puppy Love" -- were voted #1 Videos on BET. His much-heralded follow-up, Doggy Bag, was certified gold less than a month after its release on December 21, 2001. Doggy Bag entered the Billboard Top 200 album chart and #6 and contains his current hit single, "Take Ya Home."

 

In conjunction with success of Doggy Bag, Bow Wow recently completed finished filming "Like Mike" his first starring role in a major feature film. Set for release on July 12th by 20th Century Fox, "Like Mike" stars Bow Wow as an orphan teenager who finds sneakers that were "allegedly" worn by NBA legend Michael Jordan. By wearing the sneakers, Bow Wow becomes an extraordinary basketball player and subsequently the youngest player to enter the NBA. The movie features cameos by NBA stars Jason Kidd, Alonzo Mourning, Chris Webber, Tracy McGrady, David Robinson, Rasheed Wallace and others.

 

Most recently, Bow Wow was nominated for his second straight Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award: "Best Male Artist" award (an award he won in 2001). He has also appeared in MTV's feature presentation, "Carmen," a hip-hopera based on Bizet's classic opera. Bow Wow's new clothing line, among other ventures, will be announced later this year.

 

June 30, 2002

PUPPY LOVE

 

Wearing an oversize Cincinnati Royals jersey that goes down to his shins, Shad Moss, better known as Lil' Bow Wow, is riding through Los Angeles in the back of a Ford Explorer, surrounded by a dozen or so boxes of brand-new size 7 1/2 basketball shoes. The sneakers come compliments of Nike, whose footwear is prominently placed in the 15-year-old rapper's feature film, ''Like Mike,'' a sort of cross-pollination of ''Hoop Dreams'' and ''Harry Potter'': a scrappy orphan is supernaturally transformed into an N.B.A. star when he puts on a pair of old high-tops with the initials M.J. Today is the last day of production, and Lil' Bow Wow, accompanied by a driver, his bodyguard and one of his managers, is heading toward the Great Western Forum to film a final basketball scene with Vince Carter, the star shooting guard for the Toronto Raptors and, as it happens, a friend of his.

 

Bow, as those in his circle call him, is an avid N.B.A. fan, and at barely over five feet tall, an impressive player; the slam dunks and 30-foot jump shots he executes in ''Like Mike'' may be digitally enhanced, but the rest is all him. Still, 20th Century Fox is not placing a large Fourth of July weekend bet on him simply because he can dribble with his knees.

 

This raspy-voiced rapper from Columbus, Ohio, has established himself as the leader of what might be called youngsta rap, a PG version of the NC-17 gangsta rap with a similar brand of braggadocio, only about teenage crushes instead of booty calls. Under the creative guidance of Jermaine Dupri, a producer and rapper, Lil' Bow Wow has made two albums -- ''Beware of Dog'' in 2000 and ''Doggy Bag'' last year -- that together have sold more than four million copies, all without a single profanity uttered. He is listed in the Guinness World Records book as the youngest solo rap artist ever to score a No.1 hit, with the party anthem ''Bounce With Me,'' released when he was 13.

 

While a rapper like Eminem -- Bow's current favorite -- sets off lyrical dirty bombs of obscenity and ultraviolence, Lil' Bow Wow has struck a more delicate balance, appearing sufficiently attitudinal to maintain credibility with young rap fans but not so threatening as to worry their parents, cute enough to make girls scream but not so cute the guys won't respect him. On one track, he'll brag of being a ''lil' man with big checks . . . big girls wanting to teach me about sex,'' while rapping on another that he attracts ''more family than Ringling Brothers.'' In testament to this formula's potency, other young Lil's have emerged, the most prominent being Lil' Romeo, son and protégé of the rapper Master P. Some in the hip-hop world have played up the rivalry between the two, but Lil' Bow Wow shrugs it off. ''We're on different levels,'' he says. ''He's 12, and I'm 15. It's a big, big, big, big difference.''

 

As he picks through the Nike freebies, Lil' Bow Wow turns the conversation to cars. ''Big D, guess what I think I want now,'' he calls up to his bodyguard and constant companion, Darrell (Big D) Davis, who is in the front passenger seat. ''I want that Audi, that little itty-bitty two-seater. I want that car so bad.'' ''Naw, man,'' Big D says with a scowl, ''don't go out like that.'' His manager, Lucy (Juice) Raoof, agrees: ''That ain't a good car for you, Bow. We'll get you a Porsche.'' Big D points out a silver Mercedes-Benz truck in the next lane. ''What do you think of that?'' ''I'm getting that, but it's gonna be red, with 22 rims,'' Lil' Bow Wow says. ''Then I'm gonna get me an Audi.'' ''What happened to the Prowler?'' Raoof asks, referring to a flashy Chrysler model with enormous rear wheels that appears in Lil' Bow Wow's ''Ghetto Girls'' video. ''My mom won't let me get it,'' he says quietly.

 

That's the thing about being a rap star at 15. Lil' Bow Wow may enjoy many of the perks older rappers do -- the adoring fans, famous friends, diamond-encrusted pendants -- but if he wants a Prowler or a Bentley, if he wants to party with P. Diddy or if he wants to grab his crotch onstage, he has to deal with his mom.

 

At most times, Lil' Bow Wow is cocooned in a group of no fewer than a half-dozen handlers, the key figures being his mother-manager-stylist, Teresa Caldwell; her two co-managers, Raoof and Michael Mauldin (who is Raoof's brother and Dupri's father); his aunt and personal assistant, Donna Jones; his publicist, Patti Webster; his road manager, Bobby Sanders; Big D, a mountainous but genial former Atlanta cop; and a tutor. This posse, he points out, is not the sort of large, intimidating samurai affair associated with hip-hop stars like Jay-Z or Nas, however: ''People don't act certain ways toward kid rappers, so you don't need all them people -- you ain't scared.''

 

Aside from signing autographs and taking photos with fans -- never smiling, always stone-faced, with one index finger pointing at nothing in particular -- Lil' Bow Wow spends remarkably little time in the company of kids. Along with Dupri and Big D, some of his closest friends are the rappers Snoop Doggy Dogg and Fabolous and N.B.A. players like Carter, Baron Davis and Darius Miles. ''People are always telling me, 'You let Bow around Snoop and those hard-core guys?''' Caldwell says. ''But they are the sweetest people ever. Whatever they do, they don't bring it around Bow. I haven't ever seen anybody even smoke weed around Bow. Everybody wants this kid to make it.''

By late morning, much of the Lil' Bow Wow team has gathered in the rapper's trailer outside the Forum, as he waits for the ''Like Mike'' crew to call him to the set. On the kitchen table sits a stack of flashcards printed with vocabulary words: ''taciturn,'' ''impervious,'' ''plethora,'' ''ameliorate.'' During downtime like this, Lil' Bow Wow is supposed to get an education. He hasn't attended school full time since the eighth grade but has different tutors in different locations: in Columbus, he works with a student from Ohio State; in Atlanta, where he and his mother live most of the time, with Raoof's 18-year-old daughter, Lindsay Ryans; and here on the set of ''Like Mike,'' with Rhonda Sherman.

 

To attain enough credits to complete the equivalent of his sophomore year in high school, Lil' Bow Wow, who says he would ultimately like to attend Duke, needs to ''go to school'' for around three hours a day. At the moment, though, he is keeping Sherman at bay with all manner of stall tactics -- cranking up the stereo, introducing everyone to his invisible friend Dwayne, gathering opinions on whether or not he should cut off his cornrows. ''You only got in one hour yesterday,'' she says. ''Let's see how much we can get done today.'' As Lil' Bow Wow pokes moodily at the remains of a takeout container of IHOP pancakes, Big D stirs and comes to Sherman's aid. ''She's trying to work with you,'' he says. ''You're hard to get along with, buddy.''

 

''I'm very complicated,'' Lil' Bow Wow grumbles. ''Complicated!'' Big D says with a laugh. ''Spell complicated!'' With that, the 6-foot-4 bodyguard scoops his young boss out of his chair and carries him out of the trailer to work on English -- an indignity Snoop Doggy Dogg likely never has to suffer.

 

It is his second awards show in as many days, and Lil' Bow Wow is slumped in the back of a stretch limousine, wearing a white Gucci hat, diamond Mickey Mouse and dog-bone necklaces and an expression that says he would rather be playing N.B.A. 2002 on his Xbox. At last night's Essence Awards, he and Dupri performed a single from the ''Like Mike'' soundtrack. Despite some protesting beforehand (''I don't even know what the Essence Awards is,'' he told Raoof. ''If I ain't nominated, I don't care''), he left his $210 seat at Game 6 of the Lakers-Kings playoff series after the first quarter with little complaint to sit backstage at the Universal Amphitheater for three hours with Big D, Dupri and some of Dupri's posse, watching the game on TV until it was time to tape his 2-minute-15-second performance.

 

Today, it is the MTV Movie Awards, where, paired incongruously with Katie Holmes from ''Dawson's Creek,'' he will present the award for Best Villain. As he rides toward the Shrine Auditorium with Mauldin and his mother, he asks: ''Which awards are these? The Video Music Awards, right?'' The part of the awards-show experience Lil' Bow Wow finds least appetizing is the red-carpet celebrity perp walk. ''It's the same people over and over,'' he says. ''There's that one guy who's always saying, 'Bow, I'm from Columbus!''' ''Then there's that Asian woman,'' Mauldlin says. ''Is she 'Access Hollywood'?'' ''CNN,'' Lil' Bow Wow says. ''That's right,'' Mauldin says, smiling. ''See, Bow's got it down.''

 

Shad Moss has, after all, been a performer for most of his life. He was turned onto gangsta rap as a toddler by one of his mom's boyfriends (she split from his father when he was only a few months old) and began memorizing the rhymes of Eazy-E and Ice Cube before he started school. By the time he was 5, he was winning local talent shows under the name Kid Gangsta.

 

In 1993, Moss took the stage during a Snoop Doggy Dogg concert in Columbus. Afterward, Snoop invited him backstage, where he bestowed him with his moniker and offered him a spot on the rest of his Chronic Tour. The newly christened Lil' Bow Wow relocated to Los Angeles with his mother, made a guest cameo on Snoop's ''Doggystyle'' album and expected to sign a record contract with Suge Knight, head of Snoop's label, Death Row Records. It was an awkward fit: Dr. Dre and Knight, the co-founders, were busy establishing Death Row as the home of hard-core West Coast rap with acts like Snoop and Tupac Shakur, and an elementary-schooler from Ohio hardly supported that image. The record deal never materialized.

 

Caldwell moved her son back to Columbus and persisted in trying to keep his career prospects alive. ''Bow was devastated,'' she remembers. ''He'd say: 'Please call Snoop, Mommy. Tell him I want to come back out there.' But when I'd call up Death Row Records, they were, like, 'We don't know no Bow Wow' -- click.'' Finally in 1998, Snoop, who was leaving Death Row to join the rapper Master P's No Limit label, suggested that she contact his friend Steve Prudholme, then an executive at Epic Records. Sony, Epic's parent company, signed Lil' Bow Wow and asked Dupri to produce his first record.

In the early 90's, Dupri had created the blueprint for kid rap, and a sizable fortune for himself, with Kris Kross, a hip-hop duo from Atlanta who sold more than four million copies of their debut album, ''Totally Krossed Out,'' and started a brief fad for wearing clothes backward. While Dupri had gone on to produce hits for adult artists like Mariah Carey and TLC, he believed the marketplace was ready for a new prepubescent rapper and figured Moss could be the one. ''I wanted him to get my vibe, to turn basically into me as a little guy,'' Dupri says. ''I'd write all the lyrics and do all the demos. Everything you see from Bow is basically from me.''

 

Caldwell was happy to let Dupri run the creative side. ''I don't even come to the studio,'' she says. But when Dupri's father, Michael Mauldin, approached her about co-managing Lil' Bow Wow, she was wary. ''I was, like, what's going on? Do all of Jermaine's acts have to be managed by his father? That's, like, you've got your hand in every pot. Then, when I found out Lucy was Michael's sister, I'm, like, this is crazy.''

 

But Caldwell's lawyers persuaded her to sign the co-management deal -- Dupri hadn't begun recording her son's album, and without the agreement, she might have had no career to manage. Eventually, the rest of the team would be assembled almost entirely through Dupri; even Big D, whom she considers ''like family,'' came on a recommendation from one of Dupri's two bodyguards, Big Bob. Two years into a three-year contract with Raoof and Mauldin, Caldwell seems satisfied with the agreement, though she clearly considers herself her son's closest adviser. There is a certain unsavory association with parents who manage their kids' careers, but Caldwell, a former purchasing-department manager for a computer-resale company, is unapologetic: ''Who's going to protect your child better than you are? Some parents might be money-hungry, but I'm not in this business to see how much I can make. At the end of the day, I have something I can fall back on: I can go back to corporate America. People sending me $100,000 offers for Bow to do a show -- you think I wouldn't do it if I was just about the money? I sure would. But I will not let anybody make a slave out of my son.''

 

Caldwell prides herself on fulfilling as many of Lil' Bow Wow's wishes as she can. ''He used to say, 'I want to meet Michael Jordan,' and I'd say, 'Mommy's gonna make sure you meet him one day,''' she says. ''Everything I've told him came true.'' Still, when it comes to the more lavish accouterments of a hip-hop star's lifestyle, she insists she is less indulgent: ''Bow's a minor, and all of his money goes through the courts. He can't call them and say, 'I need $10,000 to buy this diamond watch,' so if he wants something, a lot of times it comes out of my pocket. I'm not buying a Bentley. And Bow will not have his own house at 15 years old. Not gonna happen.''

 

There is one thing her son desires that money cannot buy: he would like to drop the Lil' from his name and just go by Bow Wow. The older he gets and the longer his teenage growth spurt takes to kick in, the more irritating that diminutive modifier becomes. ''At first it didn't bother me,'' he says glumly, ''but now I can't stand it.''nNo one around him seems eager to put through the name change, however. Aside from legal complications -- ''All of his contracts are as Lil' Bow Wow,'' Caldwell explains -- there is some obvious resistance to mucking with a proven brand, one that will be expanded next year with a Lil' Bow Wear clothing line. ''Bow's getting tired of everybody being a Lil', and he wants to be different,'' Dupri says. ''But it'll never happen. He's gotta make them change.''

 

Later the rapper tells me: ''Forget what Jermaine said. I am Bow Wow. Please believe it. It's Bow Wow. That's how I look at it. When you write this up, you say 'Bow Wow.'''

It would seem to be, literally, a little thing: just three letters and an apostrophe. But in many ways, the Lil' issue encapsulates the predicament he and his managers face. His stardom is, for now at least, predicated on a sort of state of suspended animation between childhood and adulthood, innocence and worldliness, that is impossible to sustain, especially for a young rapper. Being Lil' has given him an invaluable marketing niche -- it is difficult to imagine a studio throwing its weight behind a summer family movie starring Jay-Z -- but it is a tenuous one. Though he insists he could ''do 80 albums without cussing, it really don't matter to me,'' his love for Eminem and Snoop suggest otherwise. If he were to suddenly start rhyming about ''hoes'' and gunplay, however, would anyone buy it? Kris Kross's last album, ''Young, Rich and Dangerous,'' was a flop, and that was six years ago.

 

Lil' Bow Wow seems to expect Dupri to have the answers. ''I'm gonna always stay with Jermaine through my whole career,'' he says. ''I have to. I mean, I might try producing myself sometime, but if things don't work out, I'm gonna leave it to Jermaine.''

Dupri says Lil' Bow Wow needs to just stay in the game: ''We've got to keep coming. As long as we don't stop making records, he's going to grow up how Michael Jackson grew up.'' He means it as a positive statement, but you have to wonder whether this would really be a good thing.

 

For several days, Lil' Bow Wow has been eagerly awaiting the delivery of a new watch he got on Rodeo Drive. ''It's like this big,'' he has been saying, spreading his fingers, ''and the diamonds go all around the face, surrounding it. All the way around.'' Now that it has finally arrived, he is proudly showing it off to everyone at the So So Def recording studio in Atlanta, including his mother, who has, in fact, signed off on the purchase. He goes looking for Dupri, but when he finally finds him, Dupri teases him about how much smaller it is than his own, calling it ''a nice baby watch.'' ''Maybe I should have gotten more diamonds,'' Lil' Bow Wow says in a low voice.

 

Whenever he has free time in Atlanta, the rapper gravitates toward Dupri's studio. ''Jermaine is like a brother and father he never really had,'' Caldwell says. ''When Bow gets on my nerves, sometimes I could knock him out. Before Jermaine, I never was able to have a break. But, like, when we got to Atlanta yesterday, I paged Jermaine and said, 'I'm going to drop your bad, spoiled brat off, and he's gonna hang with you for a couple of days,' and he said, 'O.K.''' Chilli and T-Boz from TLC are in the studio today to record with Dupri. As he waits for Game 1 of the N.B.A. finals to begin, Lil' Bow Wow plays air hockey with T-Boz and then goes out to get some fast food with Chilli and Big D. By 9 p.m., the crowd at So So Def has thinned out. Big D, Caldwell, Aunt Donna and Webster have gone home. Dupri sits down to watch the game. Lil' Bow Wow is nowhere to be seen.

 

In a couple of days, the young rapper will be heading to Fresno for a radio promotion and ''meet and greet'' with fans, then to Memphis for the Tyson-Lewis fight, then back to Atlanta for a World Wrestling Entertainment event, then to New York for Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals -- and then comes ''Like Mike'' and, starting July 25, a nine-week, 43-date concert tour. But at this moment, one of the few he has had to himself in the past week, Lil' Bow Wow is sitting at an electronic drum kit in an empty studio, contentedly banging out a beat no one else can hear.

 

Over dinner at an Italian restaurant the previous night, I asked him whether he ever feels as if he's working too much. ''I always feel like I'm being worked too hard,'' he said. He considered this a second, then changed his tack: ''But if I'm feeling tired, I'll always tell people I want to stop. And they say all right. They have no choice.'' He turned around and poked his publicist. ''Who's in charge?'' he asked her. Webster looked confused for a moment. He repeated the question, and then she got it: ''Bow Wow,'' she said.

 

Satisfied with the answer, he turned back around and finished his crab cakes.

 

July 2, 2002

LIL' BOW WOW SOARING, SCORING

 

I'm done maturing," Lil' Bow Wow declares, lying his 4-foot-something body across two chairs in an office at the NBA Store. "I've got my own movie. I've got a street named after me. I'm the only entertainer-street rapper that has their own street named after me, besides Martin Luther King, Malcolm X." The 15-year-old hip-hop sprite, who makes his acting debut in the jock fantasy Like Mike, opening Wednesday, has kids of all colors as his disciples.

 

Beware of Dog (2000), Lil' Bow Wow's first record, dubbed "gangsta-lite" by critics, sold more than 2.5 million copies. His latest, Doggy Bag, has sold more than 790,000 copies since its release last December. Producer Jermaine Dupri writes most of the lyrics. The words would probably not make Tipper Gore spill her tea, but some of the verses make a pointed reminder that Bow, which he prefers to be called, is a commodity. "Sold-out shows, pocketful of cake, What you know about sellin' tres mil out the gate?" he raps on his single Take Ya Home.

 

Now Bow says he wants to be a movie star before he attends college, before he gets his hands on the millions of dollars gathering dust in a trust fund, before he becomes a pro basketball star. In Like Mike, Bow plays an orphan transformed into an NBA phenomenon when he puts on a pair of old high-tops with the initials "M.J." written on them. But it's a movie. Bow believes he can overcome his height and actually play with the big boys. Hey, the kid went one-on-one with Madonna at the Grammys, so who's to stop him against the likes of 6-foot-7 Kobe Bryant? "I don't gotta be big enough," Bow says. "Look at Muggsy Bogues. Look at Spud Webb." The aforementioned both succeeded in the NBA despite standing at least a foot shorter than most of their peers. Bow's conquest of the hip-hop world is also a product of, well, doggedness.

 

When Bow, also known as Shad Moss, was 6, Snoop Dogg passed through Bow's hometown of Columbus, Ohio, on tour. The tiny Moss climbed onstage and began an impromptu riff that got the crowd cheering. Snoop Dogg was so impressed that he called Moss backstage, christened him on the spot as Lil' Bow Wow and signed him up for the rest of the tour.

 

Lil' Bow Wow wants to drop the "Lil," but his aunt, Donna Jones, vetoes this, requesting that the diminutive title stay at least through the film's promotion. Bow says he is growing as an artist, and he is writing more of the lyrics for his next album. His motto is "keep it clean," but Bow has no problem purchasing the records of his tough-talking peers. "Once you get about 12, you know right from wrong," he says. He gets up and asks someone in Team Bow Wow -- Jones, or his tutor, Lindsay Ryans, or his beefy bodyguard -- to plug in what amounts to a home movie. Bow's luminescent brown eyes widen as he watches himself tussle with his boxer, Soldier, in a vacant field in front of his home and play pingpong against his stunt double on the set of Like Mike.

"When he's really tired, it gets a little rough," Jones says. "But he usually takes it in stride. It's all about the job. It's all about his fans. He knows that in this business, "you can be here today on top and not on top tomorrow." The rapper also knows he gets his money when he turns 18. His mother, Teresa Caldwell, set up an account with a trustee independent of the family to avoid conflict, Jones said. "Every day I'll be wanting some of my money," Bow says. "But they won't give it to me. But it's all right, it's cool."

Today he is a rap star and just another teenager who dreams of making it in the pros. As for tomorrow, he says, "There's no telling. By the time I'm 18, I want to be doing something different besides what I'm doing now. Hopefully I'll be off at college somewhere playing basketball."

 

July, 2002

A SCREEN-AND-ROLE PLAY

 

15-year-old rapper Lil' Bow Wow makes his move to film in the basketball fantasy 'Like Mike.'

 

Lil' Bow Wow's got game and he's showing what he's got on an outdoor basketball court in Los Angeles. Of course, his opponent today is only a leggy blonde from a cable entertainment news show whose film crew is recording every drive to the basket.

 

The 15-year-old rapper from Columbus, Ohio, would rather be testing his surprisingly adept basketball skills against a more formidable opponent, but when you've got a new movie to promote, you have to endure the banality of playing one on one with TV journalists.

And then, after showing off for the TV cameras all morning, you have to drag your sweaty teen-age body into a nearby gym and sit with a print journalist in the empty bleachers to discuss personal stuff and "Like Mike," a family-friendly movie that opens Wednesday.

 

Bow Wow (he says he has dropped the Lil' in real life, although in real life his real name is Shad Moss) plays an orphan who finds a pair of magical sneakers that may have belonged to a young Michael Jordan. They transform him into an NBA-quality player, and he soon becomes the toast of the league.

 

This is Bow Wow's first starring role in a movie, and it follows two platinum albums and a designation in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest solo rapper ever to have a No. 1 single. He begins a national tour at the end of this month.

 

With his huge, ever-present bodyguard sitting nearby, the fast-talking, supremely self- confident rapper, who stands just shy of 5 feet tall and is dressed for a game of hoops with an oversized jersey and brand new sneakers, discussed his early start in the music business, meeting top NBA players on the set of his new movie and what he wants to be when he grows up. You might be surprised to learn where he expects to be in five years.

 

August 16, 2002

Bow Wow wanting to bark up other trees