Magnolia Shorty: The Queen of Bounce

The Queen of Bounce

Renetta Lowe grew up in the Magnolia Projects, one of the toughest housing developments in New Orleans. Soulja Slim, who grew up in the same neighborhood and went by Magnolia Slim, gave her the name that stuck: Magnolia Shorty. It was a nod to where she came from, and she never let anyone forget it.

By the mid-nineties, bounce music was exploding out of New Orleans' housing projects and neighborhood block parties, and Magnolia Shorty was at the center of it. She and Ms. Tee became the first women signed to Cash Money Records, putting a female voice at the heart of the label that would go on to define an era of hip-hop. Her 1997 debut album captured everything that made bounce what it was — the call-and-response chants, the Triggerman beat, the raw energy of a New Orleans block party compressed into three-minute tracks.

She collaborated with Cash Money's biggest names — Juvenile, Lil Wayne — and built a reputation as the hardest-working woman in bounce. Her music wasn't just party music, though it was absolutely that. It was a document of life in the projects, delivered with a charisma and humor that made Magnolia Shorty one of the most beloved figures in New Orleans hip-hop.

Her influence outlived her tragically short career. Drake sampled her on "In My Feelings," one of the biggest songs of 2018. Chris Brown sampled her on "Wobble Up." The sounds she helped create in the Magnolia Projects in the nineties are still echoing through pop music decades later.

Magnolia Shorty was killed in a drive-by shooting in New Orleans East on December 20, 2010. She was twenty-eight years old. Two gang members were eventually convicted of her murder in 2017 following a federal investigation.

She was the Queen of Bounce — a title earned in the projects, carried to the studio, and never relinquished. New Orleans lost her far too soon, but the music she made is still shaking speakers across the city every single weekend.