Hip-hop is almost inherently aspirational, whether financially or otherwise. Artists and listeners have always strived to make something out of nothing and prove haters wrong in the process, whether they’re detractors on your block or a racist American system that counted you out from the jump. Even with that as a fundamental baseline for the culture, Master P’s success story is still one of hip-hop’s most extraordinary. The New Orleans native turned a $10,000 inheritance from a medical malpractice claim on his grandfather into a record store in Richmond, Calif., and flipped that into becoming one of the ‘90s and 2000s’ most dominant figures in rap as a solo artist and the leader of No Limit Records. His brilliant mix of unfiltered street stories, catchy tunes, impossible prolificacy, and unforgettable iconography — camouflage gear, tank imagery, flashy Pen & Pixel album covers — made him an absolute force of nature. He’s sold 100 million records, clothing, landed multi-picture deals, snack food, and even landed a contract with the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) organization.
Simply put, there’s nothing that Master P has put his mind to and hasn’t at least gotten close to achieving. Case in point: P was a star basketball player in high school and lost a University of Houston scholarship due to an injury. More than a decade later, he leveraged his hoop skills, networking, and celebrity status to secure training camp roster spots with the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors. He later coached an AAU team that featured future NBA players like Brandon Jennings, Lance Stephenson, and DeMar DeRozan, and last year, he worked with the University of New Orleans as the president of basketball operations and assistant coach. Days after his conversation with VIBE, he announced the impending release of a new basketball sneaker with Max Out Sports. He’s shooting for an NBA front office job next, and with how repeatedly he points out that he’s proven doubters wrong, it feels foolish to count him out again. Whether it’s music, basketball, or business, P talks with the same tenacity — and he never loses sight of ownership, even when he’s working with other organizations. “You don’t put in a hundred hours for them and put in 10 hours for you,” he exclaims while sitting in VIBE’s New York City office. “That’s uneven!”
