No Limit Chronicles

West side up, Dogg Pound in the house, No Limit soldiers!

You can't even imagine the plans that I was building.

P knew in his mind where he personally wanted it to go.

We got a shopping center, we got a real estate business,

film, sports business.

It's about No Limit Sports being able to compete

with any other agency out there.

No Limit Sports was supposed to take

the No Limit enterprise to another level.

But what suffered was the breadwinner,

No Limit Records.

It was no longer the happy family that it once was.

Please, I don't wanna hear that shit!

Shit got weird.

The minute you show weakness,

the wolves circle around you and devour you.

No Limit was at a point where we was like

we wanted to be the biggest record label in the world.

Well, the west coast was doing the west coast

and the east coast was doing the east coast.

P sprouted up out of the south

and was just like, "Bam, I'm here."

So by 1998, No Limit Records just got all these free agents.

Then I was so happy that Mystikal was on No Limit.

And then we got Snoop. That was so big!

You know, everything got bigger.

This was really Master P at his finest.

No Limit Records is in the house!

23 albums.

16 go gold or platinum.

In 1998, it was selling like crazy.

Master P ends up making the "Forbes" list that year

and he earns $56.5 million.

At the same time, No Limit Records

was worth $400 million.

Coming from the Calliope Projects,

coming from poverty,

being able to make "Forbes" was crazy.

But I knew I need to be making money in other places.

That's what '98 was all about.

Why not be doing movies?

Clothing company, real estate, I learned diversification,

so I'm even more dangerous now.

Basically, what I did was I prepared myself.

In business, you gotta have a strategy

and you gotta have plans.

I had a record label, but if you in business,

you can't just eat off of one plate.

There's no limit to your game with the new MP,

the hottest shoes on the planet, in stores now!

Master P had gas stations, shit at the mall,

just had all kind of shit, he was different.

The Master P action figure, that mother... was clockin'.

Pull the thing, "Uhh!"

"Uhh!"

He even had a sex talk line at one point.

Shit, Master P was cakin' up.

We realized who we were and what was the mission.

We had like 12% of all the music market share in the world.

And all the money from that, man,

it just started accumulating.

I think me knowing diversification,

knowing that I need to be making money in other places,

even if this music thing go away from us,

we still going to be able to make millions of dollars.

He understood, "The more I put No Limit in your home,

the more you're going to say it..."

I'm bout it.

...the more you're going to buy it,

the more you're going to respect it.

Wow, another business venture!

He opened the door for people to be

their own boss, to make money.

This is the blueprint.

The business side,

I ended up learning from No Limit.

That's why I call it No Limit University.

Percy Miller showed us a lot of tools

to use our talent to be great.

We got a lot of business savvy and we got rich fast.

That was just the power of No Limit and Master P.

Who did that prior to him?

Not a...

Some people just do a lot of things

and some people only can do one thing.

You know, with me, I been blessed and gifted

with a talent that I can do a few things.

In '98, he couldn't do anything wrong, but he wanted more.

So he pursued the NBA and playing ball.

I started working out with a lot of professional athletes,

then I started realizing that I still had it.

Hip hop mogul Master P is joining the minor league

basketball team the Fort Wayne Fury of the CBA.

And I was like, "Man, what the... do you wanna

play basketball for, all this money we making?"

He was like, "Man, I done accomplished all of this

"in movies and music, but my passion,

this what I love to do."

It wasn't really about the money for him,

so he just had a dream to do it, so he pursued it.

I was getting probably like $1,000 a week,

flying on these little small planes.

No matter how big I was, I'm showing the NBA,

showing the CBA we not bringing no attention to nothing.

It's just hardball.

He wanted to earn his basketball credits.

He wanted to be out there and said,

"Wow, this dude can really play."

So by '99, I'm doing what I love to do

and at the same time, we have more records

than any other company ever on the top of the Billboard charts.

There's nothing bigger than us.

No Limit, the number-one company in the world.

Well, basically I gotta get this basketball thing

out of my system now, you know what I'm saying?

The NBA lockout is over with.

You might be seeing me playing with an NBA team.

I don't know, uhh!

At first we used to laugh, I remember he said,

"I'ma play for the Charlotte Hornets."

Till you seen him dribbling that... basketball, mother...

If he said he was gonna do it, he was gonna do it.

The Charlotte Hornets!

We filled seats, all our games were sold out,

it was like a concert.

It was historic.

I feel like this is something probably never be done again

where you can come from hip-hop

and be a professional athlete 'cause it's a lot of hard work.

But it was like, man, I'm in now.

The fans loved me, this is it.

I know, like, I'm on this team.

P was the first rapper to go on to get him a NBA jersey.

We were there at the games.

We supported Percy, we screamed for him.

Went out there, I held my own.

A lot of NBA players know Percy Miller, Master P,

he's a real baller.

Are you serious about playing in this city?

You tell me for yourself, what you think?

My jersey was the hottest jersey at the time.

Autograph day, I had 10,000 people in my line.

I went in the community, I helped underprivileged kids.

I did my part.

And I'm thinking, "Man, okay,

at least I'ma be in the league, I'm in."

Then the politics kicked in.

The GM told me, he said, "Percy Miller,

"you a hell of a basketball player,

but your music is pure filth."

I was the last cut on that team.

I couldn't believe it, like...

What were your thoughts

on your time with the Hornets?

I love the Charlotte Hornets for giving me the experience,

and hopefully some other team is gonna keep me this year

'cause they know Master P got game.

When he played in the NBA,

P saw the money that all these big agents

were making off of these athletes,

but they're our athletes.

You know, so why we can't do that?

In the NBA, I saw everything, man, from what goes on

in the locker room, what goes on with the agents,

the financial advisors.

I had the insight and I wanted to give that

to the people around me.

The main thing I wanted to do was make sure

athletes was getting fair deals

and also have somebody that look like us.

Are you a soldier?

I had Derek Anderson, I had Ryan Mercer,

I had all these different guys and I was ready to expand.

You can't even imagine the plans

that I was building for No Limit Sports.

We're here at the future site

of No Limits Entertainment Complex here in Baton Rouge,

and it'll feature not only offices but also

recording studios, a gym, a swimming pool and living quarters.

It looked the size of a Walmart.

I mean it was pretty darn big.

The lure of not just the tank medallion,

but getting these athletes into music videos and all that,

I thought, he's gonna hit some big guys here.

11 yards shy of the record.

Williams breaks a hole, Williams, hello, record book!

Ricky Williams runs to the Hall of Fame,

cuts back!

Ricky Williams, touchdown!

The chance of getting Ricky was intriguing for him.

Ricky Williams not only won the Heisman Trophy,

but he had set the all-time rushing record

in college football.

Ricky was huge!

And I was like, okay... let's meet him.

The first conversation we had is,

"Hey, we really wanna have you, come..."

you know, he was just trying to sell me.

I went to the school, sit down with him, met him

and we just hit it off, man.