The Birmingham Business That's Becoming Cultural Royalty
By Alvin Branson
By now, the childhood story of Willie Earl Scott and Shaneka Nicole Scott is easily one of Birmingham's most familiar and fascinating tales of tragedy and triumph, creating folklore that has at times reached a feverish pitch. Adopted siblings who were each an only child to mothers who were sisters. Both born in 1980 and raised by their soon to be widowed grandmother in the notoriously nice but naughty Norwood community in North Central Birmingham, when white-flight left the historic city in decline and with a new drug called crack on the rise.
While their homenurse grandmother loved them much, it wasn't enough to keep either child from trouble (see the beautifully soulful Willie Redd music video "Grandma" for more reference). Influenced like many youths of the times by Italian mob movies and new urban forms of music as well as by more immediate real-life golden-era bosses and hustlin' greats, like Raymond Mims and Red Dog, Willie Earl formed his neighborhood crew of child delinquents, with his sister's siding and support, if not outright participation sometimes. NWM, they were known, an acronym for Norwood Mafia, or N*##@$ Wit Money. The streets named him Willie Redd, he named his sister Neeko, or Neek.
Yet now, whatever the case of growing up disadvantaged might have been, the siblings more affectionately known as Earl and Nece have so far defied the so-called mafia or hood endings and the pettiness of street politics and, in a funny way, mortality itself. Shaneka never stops moving, traveling to over five states this month alone conducting business and creating legacy branding that she's betting will still be here long after she's gone, while Willie has never been bigger, being characterized by one Alabama newsite as "the most prominent figure in the state aside from Kay and Saban." And just like the current governor and legendary college football coach, part of the Scotts' mission in business is to build up Alabama and win doing it. In five years the Alabama company has created a slate of business entities, both online as well as off, in the service and entertainment space that, when taken together, amounts to a fairly major measure of industrial muscle, from storefront to mobile accommodation, with some fifty LLCs registered in state alone, each with anywhere between two to five employees; a restaurant and grocery order and delivery service with designs of opening their own local grocery store, a ride-hauling service specifically for the greater Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery metro areas and meant to undercut the Uber, not to mention a salon, food truck, cleaning co, daycare, and clothing line built in part on Alabama cotton. Then there are the media arms with the book publishing, news channel and tv streaming, all of which happily recruits writers, designers and journalists from schools and communities up and down the state.
Of course, each business is its own entity and little openly spells out a connection (everything is media co this or network that), but in the end all carefully paved and colorfully painted roads leads back to the fledgling and fairly stellar SEFG, or Scott Elohim Financial Group, though the "F" may very well stand for family, as the entire enterprise appears to be privately held by the Scotts of Birmingham, and by Willie Earl Scott and Shaneka Nicole Scott specifically. sefg.info
Yes, the same Earl and Nece from Northside's Norwood community and '90s childhood foolery are now monuments of maturity and strategic builders of society. Willie, famously still shackled and chained fighting serious convictions from his youth, is undoubtedly the boss and the brains of the impressive operation, creating and calculating practically every aspect of the business at Holman in isolation, while sister Shaneka acts as the muscle, more or less seeing to it that her brother's orders are carried out from one idea to another. In theory, he's CEO and chairman, her the head of operations and basically his board. In practice, however, the siblings operate in concert.
In 2020, when Willie's fiance passed unexpectedly from Covid and banks restricted access to accounts held in the fiance's name, Willie turned to his sister and other family members, "again and again," he admits, to secure the money that ultimately saved him from total financial ruin, thus allowing him to find his footing with the official formulation of SEFG, bringing in relatives, and quietly continue on his mission to build the Alabama business into this economic and cultural force.
And all of it, ladies and gentlemen, begins with the music, known as Inacell Records, cultivated over three decades in the gritty streets of Birmingham and institutions of Alabama, the heart of Dixie and arguably the hardest of the Deep South.
I met Shaneka Scott for interview in Downtown Birmingham, where she picked me up in, I must say, an absolutely stunning powdered blue Bentley of some kind with friggin' spaceship vibes.
AB: Nice car. Is this like the company vehicle you write off as a business expense or something?
SS: (Chuckles) I wish! If I pay $5k a month for anything right now, it better be the biggest house on the tallest hill in Mountain Brook, Montclair or Bel Air somewhere.
AB: Ah.
SS: I'm just getting a feel for it. The salesman all but begged me to keep it over night, something he swore they didn't normally do but for special cases. Didn't wanna hurt his feelings by saying no so I took this baby home. Ran a few errands. I actually want it now. Don't say nothing to Earl though. He'll spend the next month tellin' me how buying or leasing an Azure ain't economical blah blah blah.
AB: (Laughing) I'm sorry.
SS: (Laughing) Don't be. That mess funny. The last car my brother drove was a 1996 Caprice or LS Lexus made by Toyota or some shit. Copping a Bentley to him is akin to me buying the Starship Enterprise or uranium tires. Scary and expensive. Plus he gets all "buy America" or whatever. I luv that nega to death though. He should be calling in a minute.
AB: When you were running around with Earl, as you call him, as kids in the 1990s, before he became chairman of anything, did you two ever discuss the future at all?
SS: Man, please, I was just in the moment. Dudes and dancing and getting the dollar that day, come tomorrow what may. I always had the cars and a nice house though — big and somewhere deep in the woods other than Norwood. My future plans was merely to keep what I had at present and to give my kids the best life I could give them. And because Earl my brother, he was always part of anything I did. But NWM and all that stuff, that was his thang. Boys always think they need the tribe jumping off the porch. And anything with music was his idea. Now admittedly I probably always lived a kinda quasi rapper lifestyle, so to speak, but I was always just a hip hop head that enjoyed the music. I think every kid from the inner city was into music.
AB: Truly. That was definitely our zone, even through college. But Earl?
SS: Earl's been rapping since Kriss Kross. Hell, I can't even positively say for certain that NWM wasn't inspired by NWA. He created this silly lil rap group when he was ten, by the way, called New Fresh Crew.
AB: The New Fresh Crew?
SS: It go: "The New Fresh Crew's just hangin' around, got lyrics so smooth that'll bust ya down. The capital capital K's don't play? Well neither do I bitch, and by the way... I got a Uzi, Mac 10 and eleven. Few mo' ends I'ma get a Glock seven..." I tell you I knew that whole damn song. He's probably the first rapper, my brother, whose verses I could quote verbatim.
AB: When did it become a serious pursuit, the music?
SS: For Earl it was serious then. He always used to write and spit rhymes over jacked beats, even performed in local talent shows before them street really came callin'. That boy been a star. Before he went to prison for the 2 he had a standing offer from Suave House and everythang.
AB: At 16. I heard that. Mailed one of his mixtapes to Tony Draper and got a very positive response.
SS: I think Tony Draper had Big Block from Block Entertainment working for him at that time. My brother got him and others advocating for him. Created something of a phone love connection wit' one of the Houston rap chicks that worked at the label, too. Noah or Nola, or something like that. He knew her from the early 8Ball and MJG stuff, and she's moonlighting as label secretary — tho actually I think Tony Draper was using her to try and lure Earl to Houston. She had his nose wide open for about a month, but she wasn't no match for the bloods, because he loved them niggas, too, in those days, tho less and less.
After the stint at West Jefferson rap became a mindset tho, wit' Inacell. We used to hear him say "Inacell mates" or "Inacell villains" or holla "IAC" on record and we be like, "Earl, who's IAC?" or "is all of Inacell in jail?" And he'd be like, "Neek, that's y'all, too! We all Inacell." And I'm like, "Oh, shit, okay! Aight, no doubt." That let's you know how advanced my brother was. 'Cause he was just a teenager, 17, 18 years old when he doin' this. In his mind he already knew: whenever I establish myself and blow, I got my clique already.
AB: And do you feel like a lot of people that this is your brother's moment? Inacell's time atop hip hop mountain?
SS: Like we 'bout the blow the doors off the place. Do you know what Inacell stands for, the letters I.N.A.C.E.L.L.? — Intelligent Negas Administering Corporate Entities Like Lords. Is that high-powered or what?! And he put me in charge. I promise you, anyone who comes to this label will be explosive in the game. I guarantee success, on some level, if not every level. You feel me? And the only, what's the word, requisite, is that you've done at least a day in jail somewhere, kinda knowing the experience of institutional suffrage, and that you have some talent.
AB: So, prison, or jail experience, send a demo or link...
SS: Catch you a case, do some time, then holla at us. [Laughs]
AB: How do you feel, then, about your brother's on again, off again relationship with Cash Money? After having signed with them back in the day then being abandoned by them when things took a turn personally?
SS: Hush yo mouth [Laughs]. I'm surprised you know that if Earl himself ain't tell you. He didn't exactly sign any papers though, because CMR didn't do written agreements in the '90's. Everythang was oral G binding, like Baby saying "you wit' us?" "Yeah," and that was that. But Earl don't say shit bad 'bout Baby, even though, like a lotta us unfortunately, they all got back and bro became him whose name shall not be mentioned for years after he was first charged.
AB: And then after some twenty years we learn that he was framed for a murder that he really didn't commit?
SS: It was starting to come out in Birmingham long before that. The investigators tell us that heifer dosed her children for an insurance payout. Both of 'em. And we didn't even know she got money after her girls died. Cooked that shit up wit' some sheisty nigga she met. Ion know. They say we don't suppose to talk about it until the courts hear the lawyers motions and all the new evidence. But my brother was easy pickings for my brother, the perfect villain in her plot. Even had me fooled for awhile. But Ion wanna talk about that shit.
AB: Of course not. So, did you agree with the move? With Cash Money, I mean.
SS: Ya know, back then when he did that, I actually went down to New Orleans, me and my ole man, took him some money and other stuff when he went broke and before thangs started to take off for him professionally there, even though I wasn't 100% sold. Cash Money used to actually record they songs in the Magnolia, inside one of the project units. That shit was so gangsta and ghetto. Still I watched how much they respected and surrounded my brother wit' that love. My brother was a year outta West Jefferson, and Baby supposedly had been in Angola a long time ago, so he know the words to say to my brother and Earl loved that nigga.
AB: Even though he wasn't being properly compensated for his efforts?
SS: Honestly in my opinion, Baby took care all them boys for them not yet having really proved themselves on scale. And Earl didn't always care about that. I watched him take time out to write verses for songs for not just himself, but to write for nine and ten other lil cats from the neighborhood that he felt like should have a future. He would sit in there on that sofa listening to a beat for two, three hours writing rhymes. Like, I'ma write something to make you change your life. I mean think about that.
AB: Bayou Festivals DJ Smurf said that Willie Redd can easily be considered the most messianic thing in arts and culture. He saying especially with the scandals and attacks.
SS: Parts of Big Easy treated Earl's anticipated rise like the Second Coming, at a time when No Limit was the moon and Juvenile the sun. Now you can't tell me that that time in New Orleans wasn't good for him as an artist, a boss in training, an entrepreneur right today. He say the good as well as the bad, the big breakout records and the nonpayments, guys who wish upon stars and got lucky rich from hit singles that were ass, then some of those same execs go broke from the straw and the bag. New Orleans was part of Earl's schooling. So did I agree with him going, yeah I really did.
AB: And now the new Inacell Cash Money Universal deal.
SS: Exactly. Everythang comes full circle. Baby, Birdman, he like the rest of us, and that negro is as flawed as all outdoors, but that man is a straight up mastermind in music. And I tell ya, Caged Bird Sang is it, honey. You wanna hear it?
Sitting there on the passenger side of the borrowed Bentley, I watched Shaneka Scott put on Caged Bird Sang, by Willie Redd, and quietly I listened to the first official US debut album from Inacell Records, as she skillfully weaved the showroom vehicle through Birmingham traffic. Quietly I proceeded to take notes as songs like "Time Off" and "Ballet" and "I Know Nye" played, each pulling me in more and more, one after the other, and for the umpteenth time I concluded that Willie Earl Scott, Alabama's most famous prisoner, was undoubtedly the most gifted, brightest, most enlightened star the nation had ever produced. My next thought was more instinctive: that someone would kill him first. A cold insight into human nature, with black self-hatred and white ingrained fear being what it is. I also really desperately wanted to meet the man that was attempting to build new Rome.
Then, in the middle of Shaneka talking, her phone ring and it's her brother. She put him on speaker so that his voice transmitted through the Bentley surround tweeters.
SS: What's up, buke. I got Alvin Branson in the car wit' me. I was just tellin' him about New Orleans.
AB: Hey Willie.
WS: So y'all doing the interview without me? Good. I just want you to have something to go with the cover story. Ion care too much what about.
AB: No, no, we still need you to add to it.
SS: Earl, what's all that noise?
WS: Day space right outside my door. Prisoners playing, as usual. I'm sicka des niggas. I swear to God I am. Print that, Alvin.
SS: What's goin' on in there? Something you need me to do?
WS: Absolutely nothing. Same ole shit in this bih. Clowns plottin' on the crown. Salt droppin'. But fuck it, I say, and stay focused.
AB: I take it you're not allowed in the day space due to your status?
WS: Due to my head. Coons here in the country tryna make me cut my dreads.
AB: What do you do all day?
WS: Nothin but what I always do, carry myself like a king and handle bizness like a boss, even with hatred and fuckery at an all-time high.
SS: You staying busy, workin'?
WS: Baby, all I do is work, only I don't consider it work, because I do enjoy the reading and writing and formulating. I enjoy the process.
AB: So what are you working on now?
WS: Right now, there are several things I got going actually. Tryna get it eight different ways like an octopus. Neek, did you tell him about the film, since y'all talking about the 'yo?
SS: Oh yeah, everythang we talked about, Alvin, of bro's time in New Orleans, we puttin' it on screen.
AB: Wow! Okay. Theaters or direct streaming?
SS: Do people still go to the movies?
WS: GChecktv and probably Amazon, who fucked with god when nobody would. If I could manifest it, they helped me move it.
AB: Does it surprise you to hear that you get more love in New Orleans, with several city billboards and the radio spins, than probably here in Birmingham, your actual hometown?
SS: These niggas so lame [mumbles].
WS: Really? Several billboards? We need to get those shits on video or something. But, the face that you even notice them kinda things speak the loudest. In Luke 4 and 24, Jesus tells us that even he's hated because no great man or prophet is accepted in his own land. I'd probably feel cheated and like less if Birmingham didn't hate.
AB: Interesting way to look at it.
WS: Ain't it though. I swear, even when my luck bad or when things are not as good as I feel they could be, I still count my blessings. Neek, where y'all at right now?
SS: Turning north off 8th Avenue. Why?
WS: Show Mr. Alvin the Herbert Building.
SS: Ahh.... see that building there..?
AB: Goldish colored marble and granite, midnight mirrored skyscraper, with a gothic vibe. Easily one of the tallest and nicest structures downtown. Business there?
WS: The guy that built that place, the late great John Herbert, is a personal local hero of mine. Read about him when I was a young shit, and just always stuck with me. He started with nothing, one tractor truck in construction, and built a billion dollar empire. That building is his monument to the city, but it also symbolizes what a man can achieve if he's driven enough.
AB: You thinking of building a skyscraper?
WS: [laughs] Heck, nah, man. I simply want the top floor suite of rooms, to make that Inacell's corporate office, real soon if we lucky. And do you know why? Because I love tha 'Ham, no matter what they say. That city's mine.
