Most of what he did throughout his career was biting and piggy backing off of what someone else already did. He lies about the amount of records he sold, he isn't that great of a rapper, half of his roster or more wasn't very good either, he stands for nothing but pushing a black mafia image yet he's one of the most respected that there ever was. From the ice cream man theft to lil' romeo trying to capitalize off of lil bow wow's success to switching from east bay style to the n.o. style etc. etc. People credit him with making movies but he wasn't the first, he wasn't the first to succeed independently and he didn't put n.o. hip hop on the map. Why does he get a pass? This aint a hate thread either for the record I just don't get it.
ok let me address this.
P gets a pass because he completely changed how hiphop/music is packaged and sold. NO one. let me let that marinate for a moment....
NO ONE has EVER had an entire SECTION of their labels music in a large retail store like P did. I'm from cali, I had to give him his due the moment i saw an entire No Limit Section in Best buy. Not one or two CD's sitting there. like 10 to 20. You can scoop up dudes/chicks you never heard of was even on no limit. i still think he was giving the locals like 1 off deals. like, ay you rap.. cool. if you have an album ready to go we're pushing it thru the NL label. if it pops we'll talk about a legit signing later. if not. we break bread together and we go our separate ways.
to pull that off as an independent was unheard of. even for white people.
And the speed in which he put music out (which he could do since the music was subpar coming from so many different no name rappers that were supposedly no limit artist(i doubt it. i i again think they had one off contracts). but him doing this. sped the entire industry up. This is the reason why people come with mixtapes and albums then mixtapes and albums. where you never have to wait 2 years for an album to drop. that use to be the old setup. a quick turnaround for an artists next album was lke 15 months TOPS. probably more than that. No limit turned that into 9 months. and you better give me a taste test with a mixtape while i wait.
Now this is another reason why music as a whole sucks now. people are putting out too much music too quickly. you're not giving your favorite artist enough time to physically and mentally grow up and get new material throught the aging process. if i drop an album when i'm 18, then another one when i'm 19. not much has changed in my life. i'm still getting at chicks on the daily, still drinking, still smoking. running wild.
but if my first album drops when i'm 18. and the next one hits when i'm 20. the truth is, i made the first album when i was 16 and 17 years old. now my abum that drops when i hit 20 i have lived a few years. things done changed in my life. so i have more experience to rap/sing about. i have a wider vision of whats going on in the world.
