No Limit Chronicles

Between 1997 and 1998...

...Master P was running things.

My dad started making hundreds of millions.

Besides the brothers C-Murder, Silkk, and P,

nobody made as much money as I made on No Limit,

even though Snoop made a lick, too.

I sold a million records on Death Row Records,

but I never seen a million dollars.

When I got with Master P,

I seen four or five million dollars, fast.

And mind you, when you come to No Limit,

A bank account...

With your hundred thousand.

That's before your album even come out.

A house...

What's up, y'all?

Slide in.

A car...

And the car slows up, and the window comes down.

I'm like, "Are you serious?"

A Rolex...

Not just no... watch, a Rolex.

A tank...

I had a gangsta No Limit chain.

And two guns.

Do you worry about Suge getting out of jail?

No worries, at all.

Why, you worried for me?

You know, some people say he's not really a nice man.

From the time Master P started doing business with Snoop,

every week, there was some kind of hit

or attempt coming from Death Row.

Man, we don't care who you are.

You playing all kind of games.

He's got guns, we've got guns, who cares?

Master P was ready to...

...go to war.

Controversial rapper and actor Tupac Shakur

has died from several bullet wounds sustained

Saturday night, September 7th.

Police tonight are investigating the gangland style murder

of gangster rap music star Biggie Smalls.

He went down in a hail of gunfire on a public street.

This right here for Pac. Straight to the curb.

So when Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. are killed...

it leaves a void in hip hop.

But while this East Coast- West Coast war was brewing,

the South was going around coming into its own.

And by '97...

nobody in the South was bigger than Master P.

That whole East-West Coast thing,

we ain't about picking sides.

We on a whole 'nother thing,

and I think the southern sound

is about to take over, you know?

Ooh, Master P with a master plan, y'all.

When you see your opportunity to run through

a door that's open, you better sprint like hell.

This is your chance.

You have 200 records

on the top-200 Billboard charts.

My strategic plan was when people normally

would just put out one album a year,

I could put out 10, 12, 20.

We got all type of artists.

I'ma let you get a chance to see

some of the artists that we got.

It just ain't No Limit.

P had a sweetheart deal with Priority

where he could put out as many records as he wants,

and he gets 80% of the retail of his record.

We got all the pieces.

We got Mia, we got Silkk, we got C, we got Serv-On.

At the same time, P,

he was still in the recruiting process.

A lot of the roster expanded because of Mia X.

Mia's actually serving as A&R.

I was telling Percy, "Hey, you gotta get some..."

No Limit. "...spitters on the team."

For real.

I knew Mac and I knew Fiend, and I knew that if P hear 'em,

he won't be able to deny 'em.

Mia got me to do a song on her album with her, "Mama's Family."

I think the label was respected as hustlers,

but I think there's always gonna be a gap

for some people that like lyrics.

That's what I brought to the table.

Mia wanted me and Mac on her project.

I just thought that was so dope.

I'm like one of the youngest people on No Limit,

and I just, you know, come in with the game

and bring my flavor to the table.

P was like, "What you want?"

I said, "Man, I want money and I want a family."

And then we got Soulja Slim.

Magnolia bounce, Soulja Slim to the bone.

It don't stop. Who's the realest?

No Limit, we's the realest, you understand what I'm saying?

He was just raw, you know, he was street.

But wherever I go, you know what I'm saying?

You could feel it, you could see it in his eyes.

Shit, who's the realest?

Then we bring Mercedes into the equation.

I did a talent show. Long story short,

got a phone call, went to the studio,

and P's like, "Oh, you sound kind of good.

Who you signed to? I wanna sign you."

It was just that simple.

Mercedes added that sex appeal to No Limit.

We know everybody would be interested

off of the cover alone.

We had the artwork. We mastered our look.

And it's like the big booty girl,

the No Limit tank.

It was everything ghetto to a surrealistic extreme.

But, you know what the funny thing about it is?

Everybody loved it.

So we kept on adding ingredients to it.

We're just putting stuff in the pot,

stirring it up, stirring it up, like, "How that taste?"

You got a little bit of everything in there.

This is real gumbo right here.

And then the next step, Mystikal.

Master P going to get Mystikal

probably was one of the greatest free agent moves in hip hop.

I was signed with Jive

when I heard of No Limit and Master P.

Once P hit the scene, it was hard to miss him.

Everywhere you looked, you seen billboards and city buses.

Come on, man, that man had the city bus

with No Limit on it with all his artists.

I saw that and I'm like, "What the..." you know?

P was growing as a label,

and I was growing as a artist,

and I was a hot item to him.

And from New Orleans, Louisiana, Mystikal.

Nobody could touch Mystikal back then.

Mystikal would do a whole Michael Jackson show.

Tear his shirt off.

Ahh!

Girls go crazy.

Hey, come over here, come over here and talk to me.

Will you please come back and see us?

If you want, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah?

Mystikal is one of the biggest artists out of New Orleans,

but by '97, he was trying to get out of his deal with Jive.

Jive, they couldn't really get me over the edge

like I... like I was supposed to be.

I couldn't really bring no plaque home,

you know what I'm saying?

So at this point, Mystikal made contact with Master P.

These big companies don't see this guy as a superstar.

From my hometown.

I said, "This guy supposed to be with us."

But Jive wasn't lettin' him go,

so P and Boz went to New York

and sat down with Jive Records.

We had Mystikal with us.

Went to Jive Records unannounced, called Barry Weiss,

told him come meet us in the office.

The head guy for Jive.

I'm a boss, I need to talk to the boss.

We said, "Man, y'all not taking care of Mystikal,

"you know, he's not happy here.

We want him to be with us."

So Barry was like, "Oh no, you can't do that.

He's in the red 375,000."

P Was like, "Well, cool. If that's the only problem..."

Wrote him a check for 375,000 right there.

Boom, threw it on the table.

"He coming with us."

That's the first time anybody ever went to a record company

and wrote them a check for a artist.

(Anthony That was power move, man. That's P.

That shit was gangsta.

Mystikal was gonna be the future

far as southern hip hop,

but at the time, he was a wild boy.

You know, New Orleans was the murder capital

around this time,

and these murders were especially hitting

the hip hop scene.

And Mystikal was the biggest thing to hit New Orleans,

so he was a big target.

Mystikal had a diss song

about the Cash Money Records group U.N.L.V.,

and he was catching shit.

I was at odds with U.N.L.V., that was one of my rivals.

I kind of started that, 'cause I did diss their song.

The next thing you know, I had to worry about beef

and all that kind of shit.

This your boy, one half

of notorious group U.N.L.V., Lil Ya.

The other half ain't too far away.

Tec 9, you already know

how it get dirty, dirty, cutthroat, baby.

UNLV was gangsta rappers.

They were on a whole 'nother level,

the epitome of real street.