Master P - How You Do Dat Dere

“If it wasn’t for No Limit it wouldn’t be no money in rap. And mothafuckas can look at me like they crazy right now, but nigga, it was no money in rap until Master P came out. Nigga, I was on Death Row Records. We made more money than any of you niggas, all you rap labels. Suge had all the money. He gave us a little bit. But nigga, when Master P came out everybody on No Limit had money. We had money, guns, cars, everything. Thank you, Master P.” - Snoop Dogg

It's strange that the man most know for making people say "UNGGGGGGH" was the led one of the biggest revolutions in Hip Hop and became the most influential man in Hip Hop since Kool Herc. Did Master P make the best music? Not by a long shot. He also helped to bring his brother Silkk Da Shocker to fame. Silkk is known as the guy who could never actually catch the beat. Silkk wasn't even the worst rapper Master P brought to fame. Even with all that, he changed Hip Hop more than almost any rapper past present or future and he's often overlooked. But, we can't deny what Master P brought to hip hop.

Master P started No Limit Record Shop in the Bay Area of San Francisco. When he decided to branch out into actually creating music he formed the group TRU with his brothers Silkk and C-Murder. The group didn't gain any traction. However, Master P was able to begin building his empire. He chose to collaborate with other artist in the Bay Area creating a hype around him.

Eventually Master P moved No Limit back to New Orleans along with several West Coast rappers. Here Master P built No Limit into an empire. How did he do it? He flooded the market. 56 different artist have released at least one album with No Limit. But, flooding the market wasn't the only thing. Master P had No Limit focus on something other labels and rappers weren't doing at the time, collaborations. Master P had seen how collaborating with other artist was a way to create a buzz around artist. If you bought a Mystikal album, you better believe you would also get verses from Mia X and C-Murder. He didn't just stop at musical collaborations either. No Limit caught a lot of heat because of their overly edited album covers and cheap material they were made of. But, what they did right was include a list of upcoming album release dates for every artist featured on the album you purchased.

What else did Master P do right? He paid the artist. Master P was able to maintain artist like The 504 Boys by simply paying them a larger cut of record sales than other labels would. This not only allowed him to keep artist but bring in already high profile artist like Snoop Dogg. But, it didn't stop there.

Jay Z, Diddy, 50 Cent, Nas, T.I., Lil Wayne, Kanye West and countless other hip hop artist have moved into other ventures, most notably fashion and acting. Master P did that first. No Limit clothing was the first nationally distributed clothing label from a hip hop artist. Master P has also been releasing independent films since 1997 and appearing on television in an acting role every year from 1999 to 2006. Most notably for his role as himself on The Romeo Show. In 2009 he tried his hand at voice acting for Robot Chicken. However, he's recently returned to writing, directing and producing movies. In addition to that Master P is a huge wrestling fan and has been involved in everything from
wrestling in WCW to helping Silkk create the entrance theme for wrestler MVP.

People often talk about how the South "destroyed" hip hop but they don't realize how Master P pulled it out the ground at one of it's darkest hours. We never acknowledge how almost anything to be done in hip hop has already been done by Master P. Over 100 million records sold total on an independent label is nothing to laugh at. No Limit Records may not be around but the legacy is still there.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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