Mase

   
Artist: Mase

   Genre(s): 
Other
   

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Discography:


   
 Breathe Stretch Shake - My Harlem Lullaby

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 4

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Best known as Puff Daddy's favorite sidekick, Mase secured his piazza as a Bad Boy label favourite through a series of guest appearances on strike singles by other artists. By the time he issued his debut album, the Bad Boy promotional simple machine had in effect already made him a star. His flow was slow and relaxed, and his raps often unabashedly uncomplicated, which helped make him specially popular with the jr. segment of Puff Daddy's pop-rap audience (they could understand him and belt along). Of course, he was never much of a critical favourite for exactly the like reason, only that became a moot point when, just ahead the button of his moment record album, he proclaimed his retirement from pat to pursue a vocation in the ministry.


Mase was natural Mason Durrell Betha in Jacksonville, FL, on August 27, 1977. His family affected to Harlem when he was v, just at age 13, he was sent gage to Florida amid concerns that he was falling in with the wrong crowd. He returned to New York deuce age afterward, and began rapping to harbour the other members of his shoal basketball team. He was a secure sufficiency basketball musician to win a erudition to SUNY, only rap music shortly grew to be more crucial; under the list Mase Murder, he united a strike grouping called Children of the Corn, which disbanded when one of its members died in a railroad car stroke. Mase went solo and started making connections around New York's hip-hop club scene. In 1996, he traveled to Atlanta for a music conference, hoping to hook up with Jermaine Dupri; alternatively, he met Sean "Tumid" Combs, wHO sign-language him to Bad Boy afterward audience him rap.


Mase debuted on Combs' remix of the 112 single "Only You," and promptly became a near-ubiquitous client knocker on Bad Boy releases and other Combs-related projects. He was a credited featured guest on the Puff Daddy smashes "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and "It's All About the Benjamins," handled the number one poetry of the Notorious B.I.G.'s number one slay "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems," and made large appearances on Mariah Carey's "Honey," Brian McKnight's "You Should Be Mine (Don't Waste My Time)," Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s "Brigham Young Casanova," and Busta Rhymes' "The Body Rock," among others. By showcasing Mase in such high profile settings, non to honorable mention spotlighting him in several videos as well, Combs ensured that by the clip Mase really released his have album, every hip-hop fan in America would already know wHO he was.


Thus, when Mase's debut album, Harlem World, appeared in late 1997, it was an inst dash, spending its beginning two weeks of release on peak of the Billboard record album charts. It was a star-studded liaison, naturally featuring Combs (both rapping and producing) and a galaxy of guests: Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, DMX, Lil' Kim, Monifah, 112, the L.O.X., Eightball & MJG, Black Rob, and Lil' Cease, non to cite additional production by the Hitmen, Jermaine Dupri, and the Neptunes, among others. Reviews of the record were mixed; some critics praised Mase's unequalled rapping style, only others were far more rough (this writer is fairly certain it was Ira Robbins wHO called Mase "the luckiest no-talent crony since Ed McMahon"). Nonetheless, Harlem World was a blast make, eventually sledding atomic number 78 four multiplication over; its first single, "Feels So Good" (which likewise appeared on the soundtrack of Money Talks), was a Top Five pop make, and the followup "What You Want" was a fast-selling success as easily.


In the meantime, Mase's twine of client muscae volitantes continued unabated, with appearances on Brandy's "Cover of the World," Puff Daddy's "Lookin' at Me," Cam'ron's "Equus caballus and Carriage," 112's "Love Me," and the Rugrats soundtrack collaborationism with Blackstreet and Mya, "Accept Me There." In April 1998, Mase made headlines with his hold in New York on jumbled lead charges (he had ab initio been accused of soliciting a working girl, which he denied). But the arguing was passing, and by year's end Mase had put together his own mathematical group of protégés, besides dubbed Harlem World, wHO issued its debut album, The Movement, in early 1999. With Puffy's Bad Boy imperium soundless horseback riding high, Mase's second album, Forked Up, looked to be some other megahit. But shortly after it was completed (and ahead it was released), Mase out close associates and observers alike by announcing his immediate retirement from the medicine patronage, career it contrastive with his new vocation to the ministry (he'd experient a vision of himself leading people into Hell). He refused to advertise Bivalent Up with whatever live performances, although he did pay interviews on its behalf. Perhaps it was the deficiency of promotional support, or mayhap audiences gave up their investing in him, but Double Up made a unsatisfying chart debut at number 11 upon its summer 1999 release, and only reached gold gross revenue position. Mase worked extensively with inner city youth, became an coveted inspirational verbaliser on the religious circuit, and published a memoir titled Revelations: There's a Light After the Lime. He returned with a new album, Welcome Back, in 2004.





Nico Purman