60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Master P—“Make 'Em Say Uhh!”

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

Rob explores Master P’s platinum single “Make 'Em Say Uhh!” by discussing the rapper’s famed business acumen, what he means to New Orleans hip-hop, and how his label No Limit Records paved the way for empowering rappers. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guests: Micah Peters and Taylor Crumpton Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments play together only on Spotify. Best of all, you can create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm-fm-f-M-C-H-O-R-F-M-U-S-I-S-I-S-M-U-S-I-S-E-A-L-L-K. A lot of spelling there, but just do it. I have commissioned for your organization. listening pleasure, a brief montage of the New Orleans rapper Master P going

on various songs, primarily in the mid to late 90s, just to give you an idea of who we're dealing with. Do you want to hear that immediately, or is that too aggressive as an opener, and we should ease into it and wait a while? All right, we'll do it now. Motherfucking snowman. What's up all you, real fun? I always told me, told me. You know my papa never show me, show me. So I lived there like... So that's who we're welcome to my little bit of, Nickle.

Uh-huh. I told you, I was a little motherfucker living. I'm watching in your fucking chill. I got to look up. I got to look up. So that's who we're dealing with. Shout out to our producer, Isaac Lee, for actually making that. That's maybe the weirdest thing I've ever asked.

somebody to do in a professional capacity. The Eskimos have 50 words for snow. Master P has one word with 50 distinct meanings that conveys 50 distinct emotions. It is an expression of grief, of menace, of wistfulness, of revelry, of dissatisfaction, of profound, self-made, multi-millionaire type satisfaction. I personally will not make that noise again, by the way. Sorry. It's infectious because of the first step to creating the perfect rap ad lib is to do it all the time. Every album, every song, every guest verse. But just as crucially, the next step is to make everybody else do it. My name is Rob Harvilla.

I'm a music critic at The Ringer, and this is 60 songs that explain the 90s. Today, it's Make Him Say the 1997 breakout hit from one Master P, born Percy Robert Miller, who rose from the Calliote Projects. and New Orleans to self-made multi-millionaire superstardom as the colonel of his very own no-limit records. This is a crucial moment, a crucial song, a crucial ecstatic nonsense chorus for New Orleans, for Southern rap overall, for rap music overall as a business, as big business, as the biggest business imaginable. Ordinarily, I distrust grown men who are not in the military and yet refer to themselves as the colonel, but it fits here, the entire military, industrial,

vibe, the idea of Master Pete's label mates as his no-limit soldiers, the liberal use of camouflage, the label's iconic tank logo. This is the guy you want to go to war with. The guy you want to go to war for. A gold-plated tank,

in fact, rolls onto the basketball court like 15 seconds into the Make-em-Say video, which has more dudes in basketball jerseys than you've ever seen in your life, including during an actual basketball game. Shaquille O'Neill, this is early Lakers-era shack is chilling out on the sidelines.

The tank at one point fires a missile at one of the backboards, and another guy in a guerrilla suit whose jersey has hustlers emblazoned across the front does a trampoline dunk in slow motion with a starburst of confetti exploding behind him. And it's less that you see God than you see Master P seeing God. Here's what he means by Big Bank, incidentally. In 1998, make them say, peaked at number 16 on the Hot 100, as high as P ever got as a solo artist. Meanwhile, no limit to put out 23 albums, most of which, anecdotally, were between 75 and 79 minutes long. Just incredibly long listening experiences.

And these were rewarding experiences, clearly, because 16 of those 23 albums went either gold or platinum, 500,000 record sold. or at least a million records sold. No Limit Peak just as the music industry, the CD era had begun to peak. And thanks to one of the most famous business deals in rap history, a distribution deal with priority records that is arguably more famous and more artful than any one of the Independent No Limit Empire's thousands of occasionally quite artful songs, Master P got a huge cut of all that money

compared to your average flat-footed major label artist. That year he told the New York Times, I guess I want to be the ghetto Bill Gates. A few paragraphs later, Ice Cube called P one of the best businessmen I've ever run across. One of the best businessman Ice Cubes ever run across got his start financially with $10,000. Part of a wrongful death settlement

after P's grandfather died in a New Orleans hospital after they accidentally gave him another patient's medicine. This is the early 80s. Percy Miller is the oldest of five with a sister and three brothers. By 1989, he and his wife, Sonia, have a young son, Romeo, and they're living in the Calliope projects, and P is visibly caught up in New Orleans street life, such that his grandmother sets out a black dress and tells him, this is what I'll wear to your funeral. So he moves his family to Richmond, California, in the Bay Area, north of Oakland, and uses some of that $10,000 to open a record. store. No Limit Records. He identifies gangster rap as a growth industry. He figures he can magnify his own personal growth if he himself becomes a rapper. The first release from No Limit Records, the label is Mind of a Psychopath, a four-song cassette, more of a demo, really, credited to the

real Untouchables, or TRU for short, a supergroup whose membership would vary wildly in the years to come. This time it's just Master P and Sonia C, his wife. It's not very good. Most of Richmond era, Masterp is not very good, frankly. He's impressionable, let's say. He has clear influences. NWA. Bay Area Titan 2 short, both for the streetwise lewdness

and the I sold this to you out of the trunk of my own car, DIY spirit. E40 from the city of Vallejo just to the north for the slangy eccentricity. E40 is the best. The next 45 episodes of this show will be E40 songs, or maybe just captains. Save a Hope 45 times. Tupac's a big influence, of course, the bravado, the charisma, the ambition when Tupac comes around. Master P is not on that level.

Takes him a while to find his own lane. His first solo album in 1991 is called Getaway Clean, and it's not great, and there's an area to be heard. Obviously, I lied earlier when I said, I wouldn't make that noise again. The 1994 album The Ghetto's Trying to Kill Me is held now in higher esteem. There's a random song called I Got the Dank that happens to sample Tom Waits, the famed super eccentric California singer-songwriter. People who are into him are really into him. He's super growly.

He often sounds like a warthog leading a union rally. And this juxtaposition, Tom Waits and Master P was clarifying for me. It's the first moment when I hear P clearly, his voice, his aesthetic, what he's going for, where he's going. By now, Master P's ambitions are to get rich, obviously, but also to save, quite literally, what remains of his family. In 1990, his younger brother, Kevin, was shot and killed back home in New Orleans. And by the mid-90s, P has convinced his two surviving younger brothers to become rappers themselves, to join him on no limit. Vichon Miller names himself Silk the Shocker, 2Ks in Silk, and Corey Miner. Miller names himself C. Murder, a hyphen in C murder. Pete does not care for the name C murder,

but he lets it go. He got him. He has enlisted his brothers in his cause in, yes, his army. And by the end of 1995, the following things have happened. Number one, No Limit Records has relocated back to New Orleans, leaving much of the label's California-era crew behind. One consequence of this move is that it's more credible now when Master P describes No Limits musical style as a gumbo. This is shrewd regional marketing, which doubles as a way of boasting about all those influences. Number two, the ingredients in that gumbo, New Orleans bounce, West Coast maximalism, Bay Area Swagger, New York City grit, and Southern Raps emerging brute force jubilation are now provided by No Limits' in-house production crew, beats by the pound,

consisting of KLC, Moby Dick, Odell, Craig B, and later Carlos Stephen. That's M.O., capital B, period, Dick. These guys would handle dozens and dozens of 75 to 79-minute no-limit albums. Each album had a garish and hyper-reel to the point of surreal album cover from the famous Houston design firm, Penn and Pixel. Each album crammed in features from dozens and dozens of P's No-Limit soldiers, but Beats by the pound are the true constants, quite soothing in their pummeling consistency, an assembly line as a second line parade. There's some funk to them, sure, but a tank, a gold-plated tank especially, does not bounce per se. Listen to this chorus again. There's so

much happening vocally in Make-Eam saying, uh, that you can miss how much is happening sonically, and how ferociously seamless it all sounds regardless. The third thing that's happened by 95, Master P's earlier album, shaky as they might have been, have sold well enough for a totally independent label, that he's able to sign a distribution deal with a major, priority records, to get his albums in major record stores. This is, quite famously, an 80-20 deal, meaning priority gets 20% of the cut, and he gets 80.

He bankrolls the recording and the marketing and the packaging and really everything else. They just get him in stores. Master P also owns his label's Master Recordings. Shout out to Taylor Swift. In rap music, there are a modest handful of business deals that are famous, that are deified in and of themselves. The Wu-Tank clans deal with loud records where individual members could do solo albums with another label. Jay-Z's various machinations with Rockefeller and Def Jam and Title, and for that matter, Samsung. Whatever transpired between Shug Night and Vanilla Ice on that one hotel balcony.

But this no-limit deal with priority is a monster. It makes Master P insanely rich. It is no insult to say that P is a better businessman than he is a rapper, because there has arguably been no greater businessman in rap history. Not trolling. If I really wanted to troll you, or at least a small subset of you, I'd bring up that famous Steve Albany essay from 1993 about major labels bankrupting their own artists.

The essay with detailed cost breakdowns that ends with a line, some of your friends are probably already this fucked. If I was really trolling, I'd compare no limit to Discord Records. I'd compare Master P to Fugazi to Ian Mackay, the independent spirit, the spotlight on a musically underserved major American city. It doesn't quite work. These two labels have slightly different goals, let's say, but it kind of works. We owe you nothing. You have no control.

In 1996 Master P put on an album called Ice Cream Man and a song called Mr. Ice Cream Man. The chorus is great, sublime even. The tank is bouncing a little bit in slow motion, but the important part is right before the chorus hits. There it is. He once told the Ricky Smiley Morning Show that he got the, uh, from his uncle.

Quote, he'd be outside and just go, I don't know if he was drunk or what, end quote. Either way, there it is. One of the greatest ad libs in hip-hop, right up there with GCJ going, shut the fuck a! I definitely will not do that again. That actually really hurts.

Mr. Ice Cream Man was a breakout hit for P, but in 1997, at long last, came an even more coveted crossover hit. Make him say, uh, from his album, Geto D, which became his first album to hit number one on the Billboard album chart. The D stands for dope.

The original Penn and Pixel album cover was a drawing of a dude smoking crack. Cooler heads prevailed. Cooler heads, notably do not prevail on Make-em-Say-U itself, during which peace showcases a few of his more prominent No-Limit soldiers. Fiend takes the second verse. If you have any inclination to go on a No Limit binge anytime soon, to sample a few of those 20-odd albums from 1998 alone, I'd actually start with Fiends.

there's one in every family. He's super growly. He's the no-limit guy who sounds the most like Tom Waits, but he can be soulful too. He sounds like a bulldog that's deep in thought

while chewing on somebody's leg. Next up, we got Silk the Shocker. If you haven't guessed by now, very few no-limit rappers self-identified as lyrically lyrical, conscious type lyricists. It's easy to,

to disparage the label's brute force approach overall. It was easy to make the case that cash money records, no limit's main rival in the more critic-friendly home of Manny Fresh and juvenile in a young little Wayne, better represented New Orleans. And it was especially easy to disparage Silk the shocker. He has a strained relationship with a beat, let's say. It works for him. We can't all be Nas. Nas often can't even be Nas. Silk's best album is called Charge It to the Game, which back when we all used to go to restaurants was a hilarious thing to say when the check came. Trust me on this. Next up, we got Mia X.

Lip that ass up in plastic. Have your folks picking casks through drastic. I'm tacky sins. Homegrown in the ghetto. So feel the rat to his sister. It's like you're fighting 10 niggas. Mia X is the best. She may have the warmest relationship with the beat.

Her solo album from 1997 is called Unladylike. There's a song on it called I'll Take You Man 97. Highly recommended. We need to get her on a Megan D. Stallion record. We also need to get her on Top Chef. Mia put out a cookbook in 2018. She's got an apron that says, Don't fuck with the cook.

Excellent advice. Finally, there is mystical. When you listen to one mystical verse on somebody else's song, when he's rapping for just 20 seconds or so, you emerge with the impression that attempting to listen to an entire 75 to 79-minute album of mystical rapping would literally, physically kill you. Mystical is the same

relationship with the beat that the Kool-Aid man has with a brick wall. And yet, as your no-limit binge continues, I heartily recommend Mystical's ghetto fabulous. I love this so much. Okay, okay. It is so tempting

to leave these people where they are in time and not bother with any sort of epilogue. Or better yet, let No Limit records, as a an army lived through 1998 as well. That's the 23 album year. Ghetto Fabulous is probably the best of those albums. Master P himself put out a multi-platinum selling double album called MP de last Don, his second straight number one record. It was his retirement record. That didn't take. Also in 98,

Snoop Doggy Dog put out his first album on No Limit. The game is to be sold, not to be told. much to death row records and Shug Nights chagrin. Snoop's No Limit records aren't fantastic per se, but Snoop knew what he was doing, or he knew that on the business side, at least, Master P knew what he was doing. Snoop maybe had read that Steve Albini anti-major label essay. When BET did a big documentary series on No Limit in 2020, Snoop said, 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 the epilogue here is not great the music industry tanked for one thing beats by the pound as a production crew grew disgruntled and split from no limit and much of no limits roster not related to master p followed suit he kept busy i don't mean this ugly but based on the basketball portrayed in the make him say uh video you wouldn't have taken p himself as an nba caliber prospect but no no in the late 90s, Master P played for both the Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors, though we never made it out of the preseason. A sneaky old man game similar to Andre Miller is how complex magazine later put it. He diversified.

No Limit was into movies. Sports management. Shout out Ricky Williams' terrible New Orleans Saints contract. A real estate firm, a phone sex business, a travel agency, etc. No Limit Records rebooted several times. most prominently with Romeo, he's first-born son, who was a teen sensation in the early 2000s.

Master P is rich as hell. Master P is fine. Most everyone around him is fine, too. But not everybody. A promising young rapper prospect named Mack, who people did compare to Nas, at least until he hooked up with no limit and put out a hit single called Murder, Murder, Kill, Kill,

wound up on trial for murder and had his own lyrics used against him in court. He was convicted of manslaughter in 2001, despite someone else confessing to the murder. There's a great new NPR podcast called Louder Than a Riot that covers that tragedy in detail. In 2004, Mystical was sentenced to six years in prison for sexual battery and extortion. Even closer to home, in 2009, P's own brother, C. Murder was convicted of murder.

Wrongfully, he maintains, and sentenced a life in prison, where he remains, even after the main eyewitness against him, recanted his testimony. It comes all the way back around to who MasterP can save and who he can't, what all that money can buy and what it can't. A question I have listening to make him say, uh, now is why this song? Why is this the masterpiece song you know if you only know one masterpiece song? It's fantastic, it's unforgettable, but impressively,

it's not trying hard at all to go pop, to cross over, to pander to anyone who wasn't already enlisted. But nonetheless, this song triggered one of the most dominant single-year runs by a single label in rap history, in terms of pure volume, in terms of sales, in terms of total exuberant excess. I could talk about this guy in the empire he created forever, apparently, and still not wrap my head all the way around it. On the other hand, you could sum it all up in one word. So it felt wrong to talk about Master P, to talk about no one. limit to talk about New Orleans rap without consulting the ringer's own Micah Peters, Renaissance man, co-host to the Sound Only podcast, and native Louisiana. Welcome, Micah. Thank you so much for being

with us. Why? Thank you very much, Rob, for having me. Let's talk rap music. You got you got questions for me or what? I do. Always, Micah. What, to your mind, does Master P mean to New Orleans? Like, what did he mean then in his late 90s heyday, and what does he mean now? Okay, so let me just go ahead and give you some context. Please. So, I was ambiently aware of no limit and cash money as I saw them through the TV coming up. But, like, I mean, you know, I went to private school. I was at the punk music, right?

Yes. But you come to understand masterpiece. is this kind of like godfather figure of like independent rap music and honestly Master P more so than like

Baby who is like you know presiding over cash money is this larger than life figure that played for the raptors played for the hornets you know like had several reality television shows

yes popped up with a gold tank in his music video I remember the tank Yes. Actually, a thing about that, I met Master P in person for the first time. I have, like, you know,

a couple of runs-ins with, like, you know, New Orleans at random places, like mystical buying Air Force ones at Bonnable Mall and then, like, Wayne at, like, the Dillard halftime. He did a halftime show for the Dillard-Exavier game that my sister was playing in. Okay.

But the weirdest one was when I ran into Master P when I had already moved to Los Angeles. And I ran into him and I was on my lunch break from working at this coffee shop. And I just went to this burger joint to get lunch sometimes. And he was there. And I was just like, you know what? I think it's time to get to the bottom of this. So I just walked up. I was just like, yo, like, excuse me, Mr. Miller.

Very polite. Where did you happen to? procure a gold tank. And he was just like, well, you know, listen, I went to this antique show, bought the tank himself because record money was so crazy in the 90s. I recall. And then gold plated it himself. Did he say who plated it? Like, where do you go to get a tank gold plated? What is the third party vendor? The third party vendor for gold plating a tank. I'm too poor to know that information, you know? I think what would I do with it if I asked him? I'd like, it's just, you know, I was satisfied that he was talking to me about it.

No Limit versus cash money, who you got. Okay. I was cash money. Like, I mean, let's just put it out there. I had a Wayne Lyrick in my bio for a very long time. But, you know, it's what always happens with hero worship. It disappoints you eventually at the end in a soul-crushing manner. But, I mean, like, I was just more interesting.

to cash money releases. Like, I knew more of the lyrics of their songs. I played more of their songs on the car. Right. So I would say that cash money overall. Okay. Does one of them scan as like more New Orleans? You know, you were talking about cash money tasted billboard success.

They were more of a national phenomenon. You know, no limit for as much as they sold were maybe a little more regional still. Did one of them sort of stay truer to the New Orleans sound? Or is that not really even the right one? way to put it. I don't know that it's necessarily the right way to put it because even cash money's like most industry stuff has a sense of place in it somewhat. Like even after like Wayne moved to Miami, like it was recorded for mostly there. I would say that like no limit by and large sounds like those dudes tended to sound like they hadn't been anywhere else. Right, right.

I would characterize it that way, but I can't really say that one is more New Orleans than the other. Sure. Does it hold up for you? Do you listen to much no limit in your leisure time? You know, are they emblematic of the late 90s for you? I think that they are more emblematic in the late 90s. Listening to no limit music feels more like listening to music that was of a period of time. But I mean, I could say the same about like cash money's mid-2000s releases. But when I think about the 90s, the image is more,

is Master P like hot stepping in the center of a court with a towel or like, you know, standing on top of a car flashing goals of the Calio projects or whatever. Right. When you listen to New Orleans rap now, do you hear P? Do you hear No Limit specifically? Like, what do you think his legacy is from a purely musical standpoint? I wouldn't say that Master,

P's figureprints are largest on the sound, so much as I would say that it's on like, you know, how artists conduct themselves as businessmen. Right.

So I would say that, like, Master P is more so evident and, I mean, it sounds like really trite to say, but like the independent spirit of like the newer New Orleans rap

crews, like ice cold jizzle or, or my friend Pell and the project said he's getting off the ground there. And like, it's just they're, they're more liable.

to be like independent and doing their own thing. Right. And they want his deal. They want his 80-20 distribution deal that they want him a gold-plated tank. Exactly. Exactly. Got a reality television shows. Gave his son a rap career.

There we go. Yes. Yes. Shout out to Romeo. Micah Peters, close personal friend of Master P. Go to him on Twitter with all of your tank procuring and gold plating needs. He will hook you up. we're very lucky to have you, Micah. Thank you very much for talking about us.

Of course. My guest today is Taylor Crumpton, a Dallas native who has written for Pitchfork, Playboy, Marie Claire, and The Ringer, among other places. She's also part of our good friend, DeShay Serrano's new Halfway Books Project, where she wrote about the Dallas rapper Big Tuck. Thank you so much for being here, Taylor. Thank you for having me. Of course. It was you actually who steered me toward Master P initially.

And I feel like when people think of formative 90s southern rap, people think of Outcast in UGK and ghetto boys and maybe even juvenile in New Orleans before they get to Master P. Is Master P almost underrated at this point in terms of what he meant to the South? You know, compared to his counterparts in the rise of Third Coast hip hop, he couldn't compete on a lyrical level. I think we can attest to that through his various studio albums that were not putting him in the top 10 rap list, based on miracle content and verses. However, his business mindset was the best of the generation. You know, we think about Pimsy and UGK, but the person behind them that mastermind was really J. Prince of Rap a lot, right?

We think about the ways in which Birdman was very much behind the scene, and Master P was different because he was an artist, I'll give him that, but he really excelled in the business and the foundation and that development of a sound and a record label. So it's so ironic because we all have that same kind of critique of Diddy and Bad Boy. You know, we knew that Notorious BIG was the excellent rapper. But Diddy went on to have multiple reality shows, clothing, fashion lines, I mean, was universal. And we can say that Master P did the same.

Right, because it's always so striking to me how many records no limits sold, like just in 1998 alone, where like every other week he had a new record selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Is there something to the theory that no limit is the moment when everyone realizes, like how much money there is in Southern rap? Yeah, I think, you know, even though Master P looked up to J. Prince, right, there's this admiration he had for what he was doing in Houston. Master P was able to diversify that income so much by having kind of like the Baskin Robbins of rappers. He had such a diverse catalog that he was able to.

to have lyricists that could really spit. He had Mercedes, which was like the good girl gone bad image. He knew his consumer base so much. And if we think about it now in the terms of big tech, he had the data for every single hood across the United States and knew that they had worth and value that those major record labels weren't looking at. So I think after his years and decades of hard labor and work, when he was able to dominate billboard, when it was still important to dominate charts,

contextualizing that very much, that they were like, oh, crap. Like, first of all, we're not talking out of these black folks, and specifically we're not speaking to these southern black folks. And that's what really gave him that legacy that we have today. Yeah. If he had something for everybody, like, what did no limit have for you specifically? Like, which of his rappers spoke to you the most? You know, it's so funny.

As a child, I really liked rap songs with ice cream in it and, like, didn't under. Like, I also love to eat as a child, but, you know, him like, Mr. Ice Cream, man. Like, I'm pretty sure I was singing that at, like, a family reunion in the South and the heart of Texas, listen to, like, my uncles and older brothers. And not till I get older, I was like, oh, I was singing a childhood songs about drugs. Wait a minute. Right, right. Something for everyone.

I, you also reminded me that Master P is a special guest on a seat at the table, the Salon's record from 2016, which was one of the best loved albums from that year. Like Solange has said that she sees Master P as royalty, you know, and that goes far beyond the fact that he had a gold toilet, allegedly. Like, what was the key to his business savvy? Like just you said, having the data on everybody in every region, but like, what did he do really better than anybody else in terms of the business side? Yeah, he understood his ethos from the moment he entered the game, right?

And that ethos was not to compete on a lyrical component saying that the South had something to say. His fight was to make the most successful record label in the United States. And he kept that. I felt like throughout every single interview and documentary, he's been like, I wanted to be successful on my own accord. I wanted to own my master's. I wanted full creative control. And we see Salon in recent years has become so known for her anti-establish.

tweets in her commentary, you know, bite the hand, the infamous post-Gramies deleted tweet that comes out every single time a nomination comes out. And so much of that spirit, I think she sees in Master P, you know, and even the commentary that she put of him, you know, of my grandfather saying, you know, start your own army. In a sense, she loves doing that because you look at her, a seat at the table when I get home, that's completely her and the latter project is authentically Texas. She filmed that all throughout the state. So it's so funny to see these kind of like generational dialogue about what it means to be black and southern and have whole creative control. Yeah. I imagine that for a lot of Solange fans, that record was their first real exposure to Master

P. Like for younger people who didn't live through no limits, boom years, like in real time, what do you think Master P represents? I guess what I'm asking, like, what's the post-millennial take on Master P. What's Gen Z? I have a 16-year-old brother, so I definitely should have interviewed him from this question. Like, do you like Master P? I'd like to know. Right, right.

I will follow up with you via Twitter if he does. Thank you. I think, you know, we've seen from like the SoundCloud era to TikTok to now. Younger people want to be in the industry as authentic and genuine as they can. And who else to look towards that with a man who was so dedicated to the no limit trope that he would have tanks and change and army fatigues in every single piece of that visual component and aesthetic. So I think younger people look at him and see, you know, though there was Diddy with the flashy shoots and I would like to say very much giving that

black excellence, he so loves to proclaim. You saw Master P do this excellence that was not tailored to any type of industry, East Coast or West Coast gaze. He wanted to be, you. very much this southern pinnacle of excellence. And I think for young folks who grew up in the South, we really identified with him. Yeah. A central question I have is why this song? Why make him say

it's a great song, but it's not trying to be a pop song, like a huge crossover song. Like, what do you think elevates it over the thousands of other songs with Master P's voice on them? Yeah. I think if you contextualize it, like this was the song that was

the fruits of his labor from Richmond, California to now, it was placed on his sixth studio album, so he'd already been in the industry. It went platinum because he dominated pop culture, right? He, I think shortly after maybe a year or two, he decided to step away from being an artist and now going to be a record labor manager and what a song to end on, like your highest charting single and like really the singles that he's known for, you know, Ice Cream Man and, um, Make him say, uh, were introductions for his other artists, right? Ice cream, man, we had Mia X.

Make him say, oh, we had mystical, right? So he's so intentional. Like, I think he thinks of music, really, like, how can I use this highest-charting song to put somebody out in chart? I don't think it's ever been for, I'm going to go in and do narrative storytelling. And that's also a part of, like, Southern hip-hop, right? Not everybody has to be Soldier Slim in J. Electronica. Some of our greatest people we love and respect are just people who gave us the anthems to go shake some ass and twerk. Right.

It's like rolling out new product lines, you know, with every song. Finally, brought in the scope for a second. While I have you, I wanted to ask about how Dallas contributed to the early ascension of Southern rap. Like, in terms of the sound and the attitude, like, what set early Dallas rap apart from what was happening in New Orleans or Houston or Memphis? Yeah, Dallas is so interesting because. we absorb so many other city sound, right? Dallas has a base. We can argue that that foundation is Miami base,

but we took a little bit of Miami base. We took a little bit of Memphis Horkor. We took a little bit of the car slowing of Houston, and we made this melody where we're more aggressive than Houston, but you can still play it in your car and bump it, but you can also bump it in the clubs and anywhere you go. But we do a little bit more narrative storytelling where you're in your car, you're hearing the base, you can drive around and see everywhere where we're talking about. So that's the best way you can try to categorize my city sound.

I think I said in my Halfway Books project essay that like we really enjoy fighting. Dallas is known for like a lot of fight sounds. So if you like ever see the difference between a Dallas and a Houston person and a party is that the Dallas person is going to swing first. So this is good information. Master P seems like he enjoys fighting occasionally as well or getting other people to fight for him. I mean, you know, he came to George Lopez of T-Town music to infiltrate the Dallas market. So there's an argument to be said. He knew there's a lot of financial worth in Dallas and exactly who to go to.

So you're welcome, Master P. Taylor, thank you so much for being here. Thank you all. Thank you very much to my guests this week, Micah Peters and Taylor Crumpton. And our producers are Isaac Lee and Justin Sales. And thanks, of course, to you for listening. And now, without any further ado, here is Master P with Makeem Sayah. We'll see you next week.