Master P

Master P是来自南方王国的帝王，他为他自己创造了一个属于自己的帝国，他是来自南部Gangsta，他是南方Hip Hop的王者。出道十四年，本名Percy Miller的Master P一共出版了十一张专辑，一张精选专辑，这个别人不能相比的成绩让这个地下说唱界的高产皇帝足以傲视南方群雄。Master P生于著名海港城市新奥尔良，作为南方说唱发源地之一，新奥尔良孕育了很多出色的饶舌乐手。Master P就是其中最为耀眼的一颗明星，他是Southern Rap景线中为数不多的既能创作出优秀音乐，又能把Gangsta Rap、Hardcore Rap很好的溶入其中的天才。Master P的黄金时期在1997年，那时他出版了个人第六张专辑《Ghetto D》，这是一张足可以把他带进嘻哈最高殿堂的经典唱片。
 
东岸有吹牛老爹，西岸则有德瑞博士，然而南岸不仅深具商业头脑，并稳坐饶舌音乐事业最为代表的全方位才子，绝对是Master P莫属，这位原名Percy Miller晋升教父级的Master P，身兼词曲创作，制作，混音等工作，创下个人多张畅销排行白金专辑与单曲的风光纪录，拥有个人音乐公司No Limit，提携多名优秀之新星，连带家族成员都成为南岸饶舌界最为话题性的狠角色，逐步打造亲儿子Lil Romeo演唱／表演的多广事业；更引领嘻哈时尚服饰界、涉猎书籍与出版自己相关产品及个性化十足品牌，高大帅气的出色外型，也成为电影公司锁定目标，进而跨足大萤幕的演出版图，如此多才多艺的Master P，让他轻松跃入40岁以下前50大富有名人之列中！
 
拥有篮球明星、说唱巨星与唱片公司老板等头衔的Master P，对于他的篮球生涯作出一些决定。早在今年球季开打前因伤离开国际职篮联盟所属的圣地亚哥Stingray队伍的Master P表示，他的伤势已经复原，计划参加美国职篮联盟在大西洋城开战的夏日球季比赛。
 
Master P created a hip-hop empire without registering on any mainstream radar. For several years, he operated solely in the rap underground, eventually surfacing in the mid-90s as a recording artist and producer who knew exactly what his audience wanted. And what they wanted was gangsta rap. With his independent label No Limit, Master P gave them gangsta rap at its most basic — violent, vulgar lyrics, hard-edged beats, whiny synthesizers, and blunted bass. He wasnt a great rapper, nor was anyone on No Limit; occasionally, the No Limit rappers were even talentless and clumsy. But in a time when major labels were running away from the controversy that gangsta rap caused and Dr. Dre, the father of the genre, was proclaiming it dead, Master P stayed on course, delivering album after album of unadulterated gangsta. It was recorded cheaply and packaged cheaply, and almost all of the records on No Limit were interchangeable, but that didnt matter, because Master P kept making money and getting paid.
 
Appropriately for someone who operated outside of conventional hip-hop circles, Master P (born Percy Miller, circa 1969) didnt come from such traditional rap locales as New York or California. Master P was based in New Orleans, a city with a rich musical tradition that nevertheless had an underdeveloped hip-hop scene. It also had an unspoken violent side that affected Master P as a teenager. After his parents divorce, he moved between the homes of his fathers mother in New Orleans and his mother in Richmond, CA. During his teens, he was on the outside of the drug and hustling culture, but he also pursued a love of basketball. He won a sports scholarship at the University of Houston, but he left the school and moved to Richmond, where he studied business at Oaklands Merritt Junior College. His grandfather died and left him ten thousand dollars in the late 80s, which Master P invested in No Limit Records. Originally, No Limit was a store, not a label.
 
While working at No Limit, Master P learned that there was a rap audience who loved funky, street-level beats that the major labels werent providing. Using this knowledge, he decided to turn No Limit into a record label in 1990. The following year, he debuted with Get Away Clean and later had an underground hit with The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me! in 1994. Around this same time, the compilation West Coast Bad Boyz, which featured rappers Rappin 4-Tay and E-40 before they were nationally known, was released and spent over half a year on the charts. These latter two albums were significant underground hits and confirmed what Master P suspected — there was an audience for straight-ahead, unapologetic, funky hardcore rap. He soon moved No Limit to New Orleans and began concentrating on making records.
 
By the mid-90s, No Limit had developed its own production team, Beats by the Pound (comprised of Craig B., KLC, and Mo B. Dick), which worked on every one of the labels releases. And there were many releases, hitting a rate of nearly ten a year, all masterminded by Master P and Beats by the Pound. They crafted the sound, often stealing songs outright from contemporary hits. They designed album covers, which had the cheap, garishly colorful and tasteless look of straight-to-video exploitation films. And they worked fast, recording and releasing entire albums in as quickly as two weeks.
 
Included in that production schedule were Master Ps own albums. 99 Ways to Die was released in 1995, and Ice Cream Man appeared the following year. By the time Ghetto Dope was released in the late summer of 1997, Master P had turned No Limit into a mini-empire. He had no exposure on radio or MTV, but No Limits records sold very well, and Tru — a group he formed with his younger brothers Silkk the Shocker and C-Murder — had Top Ten R&B hit albums. His success in the recording industry inspired him to make Im Bout It, an autobiographical comedy-drama titled after Trus breakthrough hit. Master P financed the production himself, and when he found no distributor, it went straight to video in the summer of 1997.
 
His next film, I Got the Hook Up, appeared in theaters during the summer of 1998, concurrent with the release of his album MP da Last Don. In between flirtations with the sports world — including a tryout with the NBAs Toronto Raptors and negotiating the NFL contract of Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams — Master P recorded 1999s Only God Can Judge Me. Ghetto Postage and Game Face followed. The double CD Good Side, Bad Side appeared in 2004 and marked P and No Limits new relationship with the label/distribution company Koch. Both Ghetto Bill and Living Legend: Certified D-Boy arrived a year later. The 2007 compilation Featuring...Master P rounded up some of the rappers collaborations.