On this date, 19 years ago, Master P released Ghetto D, which affirmed him and his No Limit Records label as a national force in hip-hop. He’d been making money as a regional phenomenon, starting in the Bay Area (his early tracklistings were littered with the likes of JT the Bigga Figga and E-A-Ski) before he returned home to New Orleans and turned his family business into an empire, #lyondynasty. Off the strength its many features, the LP, originally titled Ghetto Dope, landed at number one on the Billboard album charts a week later.
From the author: Why are you here?
P rode on the coattails of a fallen 2Pac (a story for another time) on “I Miss My Homies” before busting out big time with the second single, the tank throttling “Make ‘Em Say Uhh!” He was so Hansel hot at the time he even made it onto LL Cool J’s “4, 3, 2, 1″—noticeable the only non-New Yorker. Uhh, indeed.
Below are the album’s covers, from what was ultimately released to the original concept. He changed the title and cover due to protests from retailers. Sam Goody still had it back then.
When asked about the cover last year by Matthew Trammell, then of The Fader, P explained:
“I just kinda put everything into one thing, and then I blinged up my name on that. I put all the covers from all the other album covers in that, that’s what he was smoking on the first cover. It was clever.”
It was clever.
The concept is that No Limit was the actual ghetto dope and that’s why the fiend was smoking up their albums, collections by Silkk the Shocker, TRU and P’s 99 Ways to Die or The Ghettos Tryn to Kill Me! depending on the version.
What you remember seeing in 1997:
What was suppose to be on shelves:
Before Pen & Pixel bling’d it + full title:
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