My Top 5 Favorite Tracks From The Old No Limit Era

The Old No Limit Records is arguably the most successful record label let alone independent record label in history because of the immense amount of money that they made between 1992-1998 when they made over $120 million dollars from record sales alone while dropping more than 20 million records in 1998 alone.

The Old No Limit had some very good rappers from Master P to Mystikal and even ones that were very underrated from Silkk The Shocker to Fiend. I remember my older brothers would often listen to Master P and The Old No Limit artists from back in the day and I actually became a fan of these guys during my teenage years because they were among the last good rappers from the 1990s.

Here are my top 5 favorite tracks from The Old No Limit Era.

1. I Miss My Homies - Master P ft. Silkk The Shocker, O'Dell, Sons Of Funk, Mo B. Dick, Pimp C, and Mercedes - This Master P track from his six studio album in “Ghetto D” from 1997 was actually a tribute to his young brother Kevin who was gunned down in the streets in an act of horizontal violence about seven years before the release of this single. He talks about all the memories of growing up with his young brother Kevin as well as issuing a call to our community to end the horizontal violence amongst one another and come together and heal as a community.

2. The Ghetto’s Tryin To Kill Me - Master P. ft Silkk The Shocker - I actually listened to this throwback 1994 track from Master P’s third studio album with the same name. This track tells a very cautionary tale about the dangers of the hood like how colonial imposed horizontal violence that frequently happens in the hood can negatively affects us whether it be emotionally or personally. I can relate to this track because I have lost my oldest nephew and one of my oldest cousins to colonial imposed horizontal violence.

3. The Streets Ain’t Safe - Fiend - Fiend was definitely one of the most talented rappers that The Old No Limit Records had back in the day, but he was very underrated. But despite that, he knew exactly how to spit real things about the colonial imposed conditions of the hood that we see on a daily basis such as horizontal violence. In this track, he basically talks about having to watch your back at all times while in the streets because the people you think are your friends and family one minute can immediately become enemies that will try to cause some sort of bodily harm to you whether it’s over drugs or money. Just like prison, trouble’s always around the corner.

4. Stop Hatin - Master P. ft. Silkk The Shocker, Fiend, O’Dell, and Mo B. Dick - This song also comes from Master P’s 1997 sixth studio album “Ghetto D” talks about people in the community that don’t want to see you do well so they’ll go behind your back and talk about you like a dog and would do anything to try to sabotage your career. Even though the word “hater” is way too overused in our community nowadays, one has to understand that not everyone that critiques you is a hater because you should use those criticisms to get better, not to go after people who criticized you.

5. Make Em Say Ugh - I vividly remember this track so well that it was basically the first ever track from The Old No Limit Records that I clearly remember hearing because my older brothers would often play this track in the old cars that they used to ride around the hood with. Master P and The Old No Limit Records crew went crazy hard on this track. I also remember one of my old classmates from my elementary school days used to say that he was a No Limit Soldier and had even wore a No Limit Records shirt to school one day at a time when The Old No Limit Rappers were at their peak back in the day.

Honorable Mention - Hoody Hoo was another song from The Old No Limit Era I liked because the beats were not only sampled from The Old Halloween Horror Films, but the song was also once performed live on WCW Monday Nitro in June 1999 during their infamous feud as “No Limit Soldiers” with the heel group that hated rap music, but loved country music called “West Texas Rednecks”.

The Conclusion - The Old No Limit Records will always be better than The New No Limit Records because The Old No Limit has rappers rapping different styles with different flows and also had better depth back then unlike today. And unlike The New No Limit Records today, The Old No Limit Records back then were independent from major record labels who are notorious for lowballing their musical artists through the use of exploiting them.

By Kwame Shakir