I know what you're thinking. Puff Daddy..P. Diddy...Diddy...Sean Combs...whatever the hell his name is at this point in time, can't rap his way out of a wet paper bag (cliche...ugh). And you would be right. He also doesn't write his own rhymes and supposedly takes production credits on songs that he did little more than say "Oh that sounds good" or twisted a nob on. He also is considered a real shiesty businessman who has left a plethora of disgruntled rappers in his wake.
He also knows how to create classics and set trends. And never was this more evident than his 1997 opus, "No Way Out".
After the Notorious B.I.G died, Puff was faced with a pretty big conundrum: who is gonna be the face of the label? He had Ma$e waiting in the wings, and The Lox were already underground heroes. Black Rob had been signed to the label since 1995, but his time to shine wouldn't come until later. So Puff did the right (selfish?) thing and put the limelight on himself. He released the B.I.G tribute "I'll Be Missing You", which was massive hit, and cemented Puff as a star. To this day, Puff is criticized because he didn't write the song (that honor would go to Sauce Money) and people figured he was capitalizing off the death of his "best friend". I would call guilty on both counts, but, a good song is a good song.
So "No Way Out" dropped in the summer of '97 and the world was turned on it's ear. The album was the equivalent of a summer blockbuster, a movie on CD. The opening intro, with his whirring helicopters and church choir in the background, with Puff rambling over it, talking about death and sadness, set the stage. Once the opening notes of "Victory" hit, and you heard Biggie say "1...1-2...check me out right here, yo", it was ON. Biggie absolutely destroys his part on the song with one of the most impressive verses of his short career. The song sampled "Alone in the Ring" from "Rocky", giving it that dramatic, triumphant punch it needed. A rap classic was born.
The hits just kept coming. "Been Around the World", "I Love You Baby" (a showcase for Black Rob, who weaves an amazing story of love and betrayal), "It's All About the Benjamins", "Senorita", "I Got the Power", "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down"...holy shit. I don't need to say anymore. Puff assembled the best producers (his own in-house team The Hitmen) to supply the soundtrack, and he had his elite team of artists (Ma$e, Biggie, Jadakiss and Black Rob) pen all of his verses, ensuring this would be a top notch product. Where Puff himself lacks as an artist he knows how to create magic. So yeah, you have to give credit where it's due to the team that created this album, which was the Bad Boy family as a whole.
This album kicked off the era of absolute excess in hip-hop. Shiny suits, diamonds, Rolexes, Bentleys, multi-million dollar videos, poppin' bottles of Cristal, etc. Puff became the biggest crossover rap/pop star arguably since MC Hammer. Puff's technique of sampling classic hits and turning them into rap hits hit it's apex here and would be continued heavily on future releases and throughout the industry as a whole. While hip-hop was built on sampling, Puff took it to a whole new level but basically lifting entire portions of a song and recreating it.
At the time, hip-hop purists trashed this album for all the reasons I already mentioned: "He don't write his own rhymes, he can't rap, he steals his beats from old songs, etc." But hindsight is 20/20 and what you cannot deny is the epic scope of this album and it's nearly flawless execution. Try to find an album released in the past five years that is this polished, cinematic and just has that aura about it. Not happening...this was a once in a lifetime, lightening in a bottle event, where all the stars aligned and a classic was born. Enjoy.
KEY TRACKS: All
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