![]() ![]() In the series, Master P recalls looking at the success of Atlanta stars Outkast and Goodie Mob when deciding to take No Limit Records from California back to New Orleans. Labels such as Atlanta’s LaFace and SoSo Def and Houston’s Rap-A-Lot had already released hit records, but the region was still fighting to be taken seriously on a national scale. Still, “No Limit Chronicles” offers a vivid portrayal of the decade in which the South emerged as hip-hop’s third coast. “They went and got other deals with other companies.” Artists who lodged business complaints against Master P, such as the production group Beats by the Pound, weren’t interviewed for the docuseries. “The artists didn’t leave No Limit,” he said before contradicting himself. Recounting No Limit’s decline, when artists Mia X, Snoop Dogg and Mystikal left the label, Master P downplays their departures. The final episode never mentions the company’s 2003 bankruptcy. Knowing well the importance of branding, Master P, who executive produced “No Limit Chronicles ,” glosses over some of the less favorable parts of the label’s story in the series. “The formula was to build the brand and keep hitting them with products,” he said. He remembers marveling at the marketing “genius” behind No Limit, from the militant branding to the way the back of every physical CD teased the next album that would be released by the label. That year, No Limit Records had record sales totaling $100 million and the brand expanded to include film, sports management and a phone sex operation.īarry Hefner, president and co-founder of the Atlanta-based label and management firm Since the ’80s, says he has long looked up to Master P. ![]() The No Limit aesthetic was so popular that Master P eventually issued his own talking action figure, adorned with its own mini No Limit chain.īy 1998, Master P was listed as the 10th highest-paid entertainer, and the top-ranked rapper, by Forbes magazine, with $56.5 million in earnings. CEO Miller paired a minimalist sound with maximalist output and branding: The label issued albums with assembly-line efficiency all album art featured a proudly garish, uniform look courtesy of Houston-based graphics firm Pen & Pixel and booming merchandise sales revolved around the signature No Limit tank, a nod to Miller’s grandfather, who served in the military. No Limit built its success on utilitarian Southern rap: a steady output of hits from Master P, Silkk the Shocker, Mystikal and Mia X, all produced by in-house team Beats by the Pound. “None of the labels have come forward to say they will write off the unrecouped balances of older black artists that are no longer signed to them.” More than two decades after Master P (born Percy Miller) allegedly told Iovine during a meeting that he was going to go grab lunch and never returned, artists are still fighting for ownership of their work. But in a feature published last week, Rolling Stone noted that proof of change is “hard to find.” “None of the labels have said publicly that they will rethink the types of record deals they offer young black men and women,” wrote Elias Leight. In one, titled “For Us By Us,” the No Limit Records founder spoke of turning down one particular big-money deal: “What do you think I’m worth if this white man offers me a million dollars?” In “No Limit Chronicles,” the five-part BET docuseries on his New Orleans-based hip-hop label that concludes Wednesday, Master P expounds on this, claiming that the white man was former Interscope Records CEO Jimmy Iovine and that the deal wouldn’t have allowed him to retain ownership of his music or name.Įarlier this year, as companies across various industries pledged to make workplaces more equitable for Black employees, the music industry held Blackout Tuesday to reflect on the harm the record industry has done to Black creatives, and to consider a plan of action for moving forward. In 2016, when Solange released her critically acclaimed “A Seat at the Table,” she anchored the album with snippets of conversations she’d had with ’90s rap mogul Master P.
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