No Limit Chronicles

We start from the ground up

and work our way to the top.

We don't have no limit.

P was like, "Some of us ain't gonna make it."

I have to really change my life.

I was really inspired by Tupac.

Something changed.

He started turning more to our style of music.

I remember him just saying, "You bout it?

"I'm bout it, bout it."

He had the best deal at the time

of any hip hop company in history.

Everyone wanted to be down with Master P,

even Cash Money.

You either with us or you're against us

but you're not gonna stop.

Master P severed ties with me.

It's the trust factor.

People don't trust you with money.

I guess he made his point.

Y'all stay tuned, 'cause No Limit got what you need.

About 1992 Master P settled in Richmond, California.

He'd owned this music store

where he had also started No Limit Records.

No Limit was a family operation.

Sonya C, his wife, was a rapper.

His brothers Silkk and C-Murder, they were rappers.

So Master P started putting out TRU projects,

then his own projects,

and even Sonya C put out a record.

But no one was looking at him like

"Oh man, this guy's got some talent."

His style wasn't the average style in the Bay,

so nobody in the Bay was buying his music.

They didn't respect him.

He was a country rapper to them, you know,

a country bumpkin.

That's what people used to holler.

No Limit definitely wasn't an overnight success.

He and his wife Sonya and their son Romeo

were all living in a poor neighborhood.

It was really a hand-to-mouth type situation at that time.

I'm still chasing my dream

to build the biggest record company in the world,

but at that time, we need money.

When it come to your family you gotta do things

that you might not want to do but you have to do it.

There is bad news, very bad news.

I don't wanna sell drugs,

but I'll probably have to.

Master P had one foot in and one foot out,

both being in the streets and being an artist.

He was always hustling.

Buy a box of tapes and tell 'em

"Man, give me $15 instead of 10,"

you buy tapes and you get a tape and the dope.

The police used to run through there (whooping).

You just throw the tapes up, you ain't slinging no dope.

Spread your legs.

We legal, we selling tapes.

Break out some ID, man?

Around that time, Master P, Sonya and little Romeo

moved from Richmond to Oakland, California

on Jackson Street next to Hillcastle.

There was some hustling going on

so basically, you stepped on people's toes.

They want their block back.

So one night, we're selling crack rock.

A brown car rollin' slow up the street.

And by the time we realize it,

there ain't nothing but fire coming from the window.

I can't believe they shot at us.

But guess what? That comes with living that life.

I want to take over the music business

and I can't do that getting in trouble,

people thinking that a fight gonna break out

or a shooting gonna break out.

I gotta give up all this foolishness.

I have to really change my life.

So I stayed focused,

and I ended up running into a big time opportunity.

Pac put out his first record in '91.

Dropped another one in '93.

In between, he had done "Juice."

On the set, the motion picture "Juice."

Fab Five Freddy with one of the stars of the movie, Tupac.

"Juice" catapulted him to the upper echelon in hip hop.

Tupac knowin' that I had a record store,

they had to come see me.

That's how I really got on the roll.

They end up calling me to do a couple shows.

On August 26th, 1993, Master P is the opening act

for Tupac at the Metropolis nightclub in Cleveland.

So the guy introduced me,

he say, "Next up to the stage

is Mister P, the country singer."

I had to pull the man to the side, I said "Bro...

"I'm not no country singer, I'm a rapper.

"You do this shit one more time,

dog, there gonna be problems."

So I gotta struggle with that, but I see one guy bouncing.

I said to myself,

I'm gonna turn that one fan into millions.

I was really inspired by being with Tupac

and I was able to start doing little shows on my own.

I start hitting every market.

I closed the store down.

I'm just out there on my own building my brand.

During that time I was in the mix with No Limit

but by me having my babies,

I just told Percy "I think I need to stay home."

Master P's going from town to town, selling his record.

He put that same dope mentality that you would do

if you're selling drugs into the rap game.

The same rules apply.

You sell a thousand CDs for $10, you made ten grand.

Take that ten grand, you buy 5000 more CDs,

now you got $50,000.

I was in high school when I met Master P.

I started doing logos and drawings for him and photos too.

He would give me tapes to hand out at high school.

People are like, "Who is this?"

He was just on the cusp of blowing up.

One thing I remember about Master P and his apartment.

He was already putting up frames with his records

as if they were popular, but he was thinking

they will eventually be gold, they'll eventually be platinum.

He knew that promotion would lead to sales.

This is my strategy:

when I get to a city, I look for the guys

with the fancy cars and loud radios.

Every drug dealer in every hood

and gave 'em a CD or a cassette tape.

That's the person that's gonna market my music.

I look for homeless people,

I give 'em No Limit tee shirts.

Every city I went to, I had walking billboards.

At one point he wound up going to Houston.

This is the home of the Geto Boys

and Rap-a-Lot Records.

Rap-a-Lot, they were doing it their own way.

"Mind Playing Tricks on Me" sold major records.

Rap-a-Lot Records CEO J Prince,

he was one of the most successful

independent black moguls at that time.

I started Rap-a-Lot Records in 1986.

First time I met P,

I was actually at a club in Houston.

Rolled up in a Rolls Royce.

He had a mink coat on

and I'm like, "Who is this dude?"

He was inquisitive.

He wanted to know how was this being done.

I said, "Man, I'm a record executive.

"I have a distribution deal with Priority Records."

And I'm like, a black man owning a company

and actually making money, that's what I wanna do.

And I think a seed was planted that night.

When I extended my hand it was play everything.

So after I left Houston I end up back in the Bay

and I realized I needed to be strategic like J Prince.

So by late '93, Master P was very committed

to going to that next level.

He goes to Merritt College.

The deeper he was getting into the music

the more knowledge he knew he needed to be able to win.

He just started taking business classes.

So one day, and P sat down.

He said, "We need a manager."

We end up meeting this guy, Tobin Costen.

I was DJing at Gonzaga University,

Everyone was telling me the Bay Area was the place to be

if you were trying to get in the industry and grow.

Bay Area.

So P and I connected at Denny's in Richmond.

As soon as we met,

it was like, man, this is my dude.

This guy got glasses on, he looked like an executive.

Okay, he a front man.

I joined No Limit in 1993 as Master P's business manager.

When I came on board, we always talked about

"We're gonna take over the game."

And the first thing is figure out

how we get better distribution to sell more records.