Master P wasn't bigger than X or Jay in '98. Yes, No Limit was a force, but to say they were doing it with no promo is misleading. Many of those albums had TV commercials and spreads in magazines. That's not even mentioning how every No Limit release promoted future releases. If you bought Da Last Don, you knew what releases were up next (weeks, months and even years in advance) and you heard many of those artists on the album. It was genius promo/marketing, but still marketing.
Master P- MP Da Last Don Revisited
- Thread starter DaHNIC82
- Start date
Master P wasn't bigger than X or Jay in '98. Yes, No Limit was a force, but to say they were doing it with no promo is misleading. Many of those albums had TV commercials and spreads in magazines. That's not even mentioning how every No Limit release promoted future releases. If you bought Da Last Don, you knew what releases were up next (weeks, months and even years in advance) and you heard many of those artists on the album. It was genius promo/marketing, but still marketing.
Bruce LeRoy
All Star
All of his albums after Ghetto D were trash. Sh-t, the ones before that weren't that good either outside of 99 Ways To Die, and Ice Cream Man...
The Ghetto's Trying To Kill Me isn't a good album breh?
The original from 94 went hard
Mediocre = trashThe Ghetto's Trying To Kill Me isn't a good album breh?
The original from 94 went hard
Welcome to the Coli
If you didn't buy No Limit albums or the hip hop mags, you would have NO clue that those albums were out
Meanwhile Puffy, Mase, all the other BadBoy acts and Cash Money from HA on in early 1999 (when Universal stepped their game up) were played tons and tons of time everywhere. OF COURSE those would sell bigtime
Quiet as kept
Ghetto's Trying To Kill Me in 94
99 Ways To Die in 95
Ice Cream Man in 96
and Ghetto D in 97
all these albums range from solid to classic....lot of these dudes favorites would kill for a run like that
Marlo Barksdale
Really out chea
as others have stated already, what were the flops of '99 before P's album at the end of the year?
they were releasing a lot of the lower-tier acts, which is something that they should be commended for actually.
the stuff that was expected to move units & chart high, did just that.
da crime family's sales may have been a lil disappointing, but they had the hits on there and the relevance.
yea, '97 was the setup & mainstream arrival. but the big mainstream run was really late '97 until late '99. ghetto d was the real takeoff. with "make em say ugh" being the out-the-park homerun solidifier in '98.
cash money was NOT competing with no limit in early '99. BREH. theres a reason why 400 degreez didn't take off like that until the summer, even tho it dropped in novemeber. sure it might've been a big deal down south, but overall, it was a slow-burn. that period was moreso the setup/arrival period for cash money. sure, universal made sure HA was on MTV but that was a "WTF slow-burn" record that took a while to catch on, and when it did catch on, it was a good gimmick or concept record. its not what sold the album. meanwhile, master p was basically a ghetto super-hero at the time.
"cash money is an army" is the song that started turning heads for the label, coupled with juvenile dropping a follow-up hit.
it was the string of summer hits that solidified cash money. back that thang up, bling bling, we on fire, and they had the video with Tear Da Club Up Thugs on the side. not only was that the homerun soidifier but it was the GRAND SLAM solidifier. then when they did the source awards, it as a wrap.
meh, cash money taking over really wasn't amazing.
1.) they were pawns for universal's corporate aqenda to close in on the more independent no limit's turf.
2.) we've seen this a thousand times over. rapper X blows up to the moon, and once the quality has already peaked, and while theyre making all these great moves......back home, rapper Y is blowing up and having a fresh run. back when mainstream rap was more grassroots/organic, as to now where they just force stuff on us, and keep them in rotation for 10 year cycles.
the shifts in the school year aren't surprising. back then, the 2nd half of the school year used to feel completely different than the beginning of that fiscal year.
and its not like we got to see prime cash money & prime no limit duke it out. and they definitely didn't have equal platforms. cash money was pushed to the moon via universal.
and breh, the fact that no limit dropped all those albums with no promo in '98, and they still sold, is like the main thing that no limit is legendary for. and while some of those albums could've been better, most of those artists did drop better works, imo.
snoop's no limit debut >>>> doggfather
so you cant say that's a dropoff.
But if you go strictly by numbers then you wouldn't see a falloff, but that Last Don album showed a big chink in the Tank and the major releases didn't live up to the expectations that people had. Mystikal was DESTROYING his soldier song appearances so much that people would get a CD and fast forward straight to his verse. Ghetto Fabulous was just like Da Last Don in that it was nowhere near expectations. Snoop's did numbers but it got panned by many and that's why he got back to the West Coast production after that. The second tier acts put out some good projects but NL's major problem was the main acts not delivering, and that may not show immediately in the sales because people were buying them to listen.
400 Degreez wasn't really a slow burn in the South, which was NL's main market. By early 1999 they were on NL's head clout wise and by that spring it was a wrap. Here's a 1999 video I recorded from BET's Hit List TV show (replaced Video Soul & Planet Groove) with CMR from Black College Spring Break 1999 with Juvenile & CMR. 400 Degreez swept through the South and the country something serious.
They had "the streets" and seemed to be authentic New Orleans, whereas NL had gotten more glossy by then. By Da Crime Family NL was in "copy CMR" mode ("4 or 5 Hummers but I ain't no Uptown Stunna") and were feeling major pressure. That's why they did the Hooty Hoo video back in the Callio and that was the only song remembered from that double album.
That's the kicker. No Limit had a niche audience. It wasn't like some casual fan was going to buy a Mean Green album. These were people who were already fans of the brand. So yeah, it's safe to say people who copped Master P albums also copped other No Limit albums because they heard that artist on P's album and saw the ad in the cd booklet. They didn't need radio because each album promoted another.
Fair nuff
I'm just sayin' if Priority/Virgin had put their marketing machine behind singles/videos like these
they would have sold more, and gained more fans (who thought NL was trash, but most 98 albums were at least solid)
Playaz Eyez
Veteran
thisAnd what's this myth that NL wasn't massive. P, Silkk, and Mystikal had all kind of radio and video play, which is the reason a lot of the other lesser NL artists were selling. I bought a fukking Full Blooded and Skull Duggery album
oO J Smooth Oo
All Star
album is dope as fukk and goes hard in the gym 
Come on breh.
How Master P wasn't bigger than these dudes??
Jay wasn't even big in the south in 98. DMX just started to catch in 98 down south, 97 P and No Limit was already taking over the game.
Going into that 98 year, who was hotter than P?
January 1998, Who had the hottest album out? I'll wait.
Do you know what No Limit did in 1997?? That year alone, made P the hottest nikka in the game going into that 1998 year, and the stuff that he was on? You do know, "I Got the Hook Up' was the summer movie to see that year, and the soundtrack sold very well.
Do you know what singles and artists that was running the game in 1997??
What did Jay-z or DMX do in 1997 that put them over Master P?
Let's start there
oO J Smooth Oo
All Star
And are better than some rappers discographies
@JustCKing
See how we try and fit 2019 thoughts and re-write history, it makes for a good discussion, nevertheless.
Jay-Z album Hard Knock came out in September 1998. so when that release came out, that automatic put him over P as being the hottest dude in the game?? Lol come on, that doesn't even makes sense. What led to him even being in nikkas mouth/stereo systems down south?? What song?
From January-September 1998, How did Jay-z run 1998 and was bigger than P? P in that year alone dropped one of the most anticipated album from Snoop in August, also dropped the summer movie "I got the hook up" that everybody went and seen and he dropped C-Murder's Life and Death (another anticipated album) had the streets on lock?? also dropped his own album Last Don, which the cover alone had nikkas talking because it was something that never been done before lol
How was Jay-z bigger than P who was running the game. Dude, P was everywhere and folks were on the NL wave. Plus the south was on CMR, the south wasn't running out and copping a Jay-Z album lol smh
Jay-z wasn't even bigger than C-Murder in 1998 at the time. Lol. Come on let's not re-write history
Every cutlass, hood, regal, ghetto, had C-Murder album, All you heard was Akickdoe and Making Moves with Thugs at functions, clubs, parties, etc.
What song did Jay-Z have that was bigger than "Akickdoe" when C-Murder album came out???
See how we try and fit 2019 thoughts and re-write history, it makes for a good discussion, nevertheless.
Jay-Z album Hard Knock came out in September 1998. so when that release came out, that automatic put him over P as being the hottest dude in the game?? Lol come on, that doesn't even makes sense. What led to him even being in nikkas mouth/stereo systems down south?? What song?
From January-September 1998, How did Jay-z run 1998 and was bigger than P? P in that year alone dropped one of the most anticipated album from Snoop in August, also dropped the summer movie "I got the hook up" that everybody went and seen and he dropped C-Murder's Life and Death (another anticipated album) had the streets on lock?? also dropped his own album Last Don, which the cover alone had nikkas talking because it was something that never been done before lol
How was Jay-z bigger than P who was running the game. Dude, P was everywhere and folks were on the NL wave. Plus the south was on CMR, the south wasn't running out and copping a Jay-Z album lol smh
Jay-z wasn't even bigger than C-Murder in 1998 at the time. Lol. Come on let's not re-write history
Every cutlass, hood, regal, ghetto, had C-Murder album, All you heard was Akickdoe and Making Moves with Thugs at functions, clubs, parties, etc.
What song did Jay-Z have that was bigger than "Akickdoe" when C-Murder album came out???
Breh, we're talking 1998. When I look at 1998 and who ran that year, Master P is like Top 5, but these artists were clearly bigger:
Lauryn
X
Jay
And one could argue, Lauryn was R&B, but it was her rap records that put her over the top. And to answer the question of what those artists were doing in '97, they were building buzz.
And why are you comparing Jay's status in The South to P. Master P made music that was Southern. Jay is an outsider and nothing he was making before "Money Ain't A Thang" was remotely Southern. That's not to say he didn't get play here or he didn't have a following, but The South wasn't his target market. Same goes for X, but when the album dropped, he was THAT dude and yes he was bigger than P in 1998. He had that call and response, hype sound that definitely had appeal down here.