Mase-Harlem World Full Album Zip
Dlayne Mohammed
Harlem World was an American hip hop group founded by Mase that was signed to Jermaine Dupri's So So Def. The group consisted of seven members: Mase's sister Baby Stase (Stason Betha), Blinky Blink, Cardan, Huddy (Andre Hudson), Meeno, Suga J, and a then unknown Loon.[1] They released their first and only album, The Movement on March 9, 1999, which would make it to #11 on the Billboard 200[2] and be certified gold the following month.[3] Despite the success of the album, the group disbanded later in the year with their last appearance being Mase's "From Scratch" on his second album, Double Up.
Harlem World is the debut album by American hip hop recording artist Mase, released on October 28, 1997, by Bad Boy Records and Arista Records. The album was nominated at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards for Best Rap Album. It went on to sell 4.9 million copies in the United States, going quadruple Platinum in the United States. Harlem World sold nearly 273,000 copies during its first week.[1]
Entertainment Weekly said of the album: "...creatively refreshing, well-crafted lyrics... rap's newest bad boy more than holds his own on his solo debut... his distinctive marble-mouthed drawl... creates a regular-guy persona all too rare in hip-hop."Muzik (4/9, p.84) - 4 stars (out of 5) - "...Harlem on the rise? Most definitely."Rap Pages (1/98, p.105) - Solid Material - "...Creatively refreshing, well-crafted lyrics and a high-energy track over a hyped beat easily make this..."
Out of print on vinyl since it dropped on October 28, 1997, Mase's debut album is being reissued on wax for the 25 year anniversary. Production by Sean "Puffy" Combs aka Diddy, The Neptunes, D-Dot, Dame Grease, and Jermaine Dupri.
Few albums in 1997 were as popular as Harlem World, which was almost impossible to avoid on TV and radio. However, when award time rolled around, he was bested by another New York heavyweight who had himself one of the best years of his career.
In this bonus episode Torae and Bonsu review Mase's debut album HARLEM WORLD alongside the album's executive producer, special guest Deric 'DDot' Angelettie in front of a live studio audience in Harlem , NY. DDot details how the album came to be, Mase's importance to Bad Boy & what magic he and the Hitmen brought to the table. We had to give you this special live episode celebrating 25 years of M-A-$-E cause it Feels So Good.
This luxurious shirt is designed for those who appreciate the cultural impact of Harlem's iconic rapper, Mase, and his groundbreaking debut album, 'Harlem World.' Drawing inspiration from the refined aesthetics of high-end streetwear brands, our tee captures the spirit of an era that continues to resonate.
"It wasn't surprising that Murda Ma$e would become the next big star on Bad Boy Records after his smash guest appearances on both Puff Daddy's No Way Out and The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death. 1997's Harlem World solidified Ma$e's position as the Prince of Bad Boy and a burgeoning hip-hop megastar in his own right. Released in October 1997, Harlem World was a hit, landing at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and selling in excess of 3 million records. The combination of Ma$e's buttery flow and the Bad Boy pop sensibility was a perfect synthesis for pop chart domination that Harlem World would achieve. The album aimed for big-budget, blockbuster proportions and did not fail to achieve its goal. Songs like "Feel So Good" and "Lookin' at Me" were giant hits at the time while the album was littered was guest appearances from artists such as JAY-Z, DMX, The LOX, Puff Daddy, Busta Rhymes and Total" (XXL). 25th anniversary colored vinyl 2LP.
After listening to his album, Harlem World.. I came to a few conclusions.. No Mase is not a commercial rapper although Harlem World has lots of commercial sounding songs... For example, there are tracks like 'Feels So Good' which borrows from Kool & The Gang's 'Hollywood Swingers'. 'Love You So' with singer Billy Lawrence is a yet another hip hop remake of Teena Marie's Square Biz... will somebody go out and ask Teena herself to sing on the remake of her song?.. I Need To Be w/ Monifah, What You Want w/ Total and Jealous Guys w/ 112 all have a real commercial feel to them.. At this point in the game.. it appears to be what a Mase fan would want and expect...familiar hooks and simple type raps...Now in reviewing this album I have to answer the question, Did Mase achieve his goal of making a certain type of lp..? I think he did... He also shows a potential to be an artists who can hang with the headz of the world.. This is illustrated on songs like 'Take What's Yours' w/ DMX, 'Will They Die For You' w/ Puff and L'il Kim, 'Niggaz Wanna Act' w/ Busta Rhymes and the very west coast sounding 'The Player Way' w/ Eightball and MJG...I know all these songs might not be enough to convert a true head into a Mase fan... But rest assured his album will hold your attention.. At least the beats are good... The main problems I have with Mase is that he appears to be shallow in terms of what he raps about.. If the topic isn't money and material wealth he's rappin' about himself and lettin' it be known that he's some sort of thug.. That unfortunately gets played out rather quickly... He also curses a lot... In fact too much... It takes away from him and the lp.. It also prevents us a djs from playing it on the radio.. I just feel that Mase could be a lot more clever with his words... So the bottom line here is if you want a safe commercial sounding lp with a bit of an edge.. Then the Harlem World is for you.. If you want some Rakim like lp...Don't come down here expecting that...
Production from the Hitmen, Bad Boy's in-house team, made hip-hop fans want to dance again after the year's unexpected violence. Ma$e brought an undeniably sunny shine to the game, and although some may frown at the memory of the shiny suits and bad dancing, he brought humor when rap was in dire need of a smile.Harlem's son had dropped a debut album worthy of the hype. Harlem World produced hit singles "Lookin' At Me," "What You Want," and "Feel So Good," and Ma$e's achieved far more success than anyone could have expected, ushering in hip-hop's new sound.
With B.I.G. gone and The LOX negotiating their release from the label, Bad Boy needed a hit and Mase was the first to step to the plate. Anticipation was high, but rather than promote the album, Mase announced that he was quitting rap to become a pastor in Atlanta, a move that shocked and puzzled people until it was later revealed that he had actually been chased out of his home neighborhood of Harlem and, really, all of New York City.
Mase's Harlem World (Bad Boy) is a hugely appealing, moderatelydisturbing piece of pop that has no more credibility with the keepersof hip hop's gated community than Calvin Butts, Al Roker, or the greatneglected legacy of the Fat Boys. Twenty-year-old Mason Betha hasperformed better than anyone could have hoped when the murder ofBiggie Smalls cost Puffy Combs his most valuable playa earlier thisyear. With his phlegmatic, just-woke-up drawl the known selling pointof singles by 112, Mariah Carey, Brian McKnight, and the weak-rappingPuffy himself, as well as the key that opened Biggie's posthumousstreet-jam-of-the-year "Mo Money Mo Problems," Mase hit under his ownname with the high-spirited "Feel So Good." Suddenly, he saw hisdebut album debut at No. 1, which was a given, and then maintain for asecond week, which wasn't. But due to the continuing evolution ofthose two hip hop archetypes, the gangsta and the mack daddy, theseachievements didn't guarantee the kind of respect every hip hoppercraves.Puffy himself is suspect, seen as "r&b" rather than "hip hop,"even if his tradition-bearing loops have done far more to divert rapBenjamins back to NYC than RZA's sonic strata. Puffy's ticket tolegitimacy was the well-publicized crack-dealing past of the NotoriousB.I.G., a dry storyteller whose casually sardonic tone, fuck-me humor,and fascination with his own mortality redefined the defiant macho ofearly Ice-T and Ice Cube for a subculture weary of splitting the slimdifference between sensational fantasy and violent reality. A talkernot a declaimer, mocking r&b whenever he took up a tune anddoubting his own juice with every muted grunt and moan, Biggie cameacross as a tough guy who could take care of his own yet had grownsick to death of the thug life. At just the right moment, he was agangsta who didn't take much pride in being a gangsta. By contrast,Puffy's toughness seems a function of his management skills--he's aman who knows how to hire bodyguards. And Mase, who Puffyaffectionately identified as "my little brother" when he showed offhis intentional family at Madison Square Garden December 1, is a cute,sexy boy toy who knows somebody with a lot of bodyguards.Typically for rap's self-mythologizing world, the biographical detailsare already a little murky. On the album Mase identifies hisbirthplace as Harlem, which fits the part of his image in which hereturns props to the neighborhood where hip hop turned showbusiness. But Bad Boy's bio says he was born in Jacksonville, movednorth at five, was sent back south eight years later when he could nolonger "avoid the lure of dangerous ghetto games," and came north forgood two years after that. On the album, Mase depicts himself"standin' on the corner sellin' dope for dough." Yet he told TrentFitzgerald in Beat-Down, "I was the guy who was to leave theneighborhood and become a NBA star and come back and save theneighborhood." Soon, he says, he was studying sociology at SUNY--on abasketball scholarship, he says, though he looks to be aboutfive-nine--and rapping on the team bus.And though hip hop hards don't want to hear it, rapping is somethingMase has a gift for. Like Snoop Doggy Dogg without the killer cool, heearns the overused term "flow"--never in a hurry, slurring vowels andswallowing consonants, he has no trouble rhyming "my limo" and "sexsymbol" and is at ease with both notions. His languid, congestedtimbre sounds goofy and utterly confident at the same time. On PuffDaddy's star-studded bill, only island-flava Busta Rhymes and perhapsthe forthright Lil' Kim--never mind Jay-Z, an overrated technician ona par with, say, New Orleans soul pro Johnny Adams--approached hisvocal originality. Of course, that's also to except Biggie, whose manytaped appearances underscored how slyly his delivery combined hard andoffhand--while Mase, too bad for his cred, beguilingly combinessoft and offhand. He's the cuddliest rapper ever, anintrinsically unscary figure who actually told Spin's SiaMichel that he wanted to be the "black Barney." I can't attest to hisrumored toddler appeal, but I have it from several firsthandauthorities that schoolgirls love him, and even worse for thegatekeepers, school boys love him too. Ladies OK, you know howthey are. But if Mase and Puff seduce the niggaz, who's gonna getpaid for keeping it real? While Biggie's version of gangsta was justwhat the community ordered, Mase's version of mack daddy makes it wantto fwow up.Admittedly, the cheers he got from the very un-kiddie Gardencrowd--which, "pop" or no, was also overwhelmingly AfricanAmerican--were relatively high-pitched. But the ladies won everymake-some-noise contest all night; what's more telling in re Mase'scuddle factor is that many of these were X-rated. Especially for theopeners, this was a big-time raunchfest, from Usher's practicedfloor-humping to Jay-Z's ice-cool "Ladies grab my dick if you love hiphop" to Foxy Brown and her brother Pretty Boy's foulniggas-who-got-no-dicks/bitches-who-got-stink-pussy chants to Busta'swell-relished, "underaged not allowed" envoi, highlighted by aconvincing pantomime in which he finger-fucked his lady of the eveningfrom the rear. Puffy's folks had lots of other ways to get the crowdgoing--"Shaft" opening and "We Are Family" close, "I'll Be MissingYou" choir followed by a $3 million dollar check for Biggie's mom andkids, platinum records to not just perform but present, Puffy'strained dancing and outrageous preaching and improved rapping. Butthey couldn't resist reprising the openers' flip-the-bird wave anddrop-trou shuffle. And that's leaving out Lil' Kim.Yet if any of this bothered the ladies who were shrieking for Mase,that didn't stop them from shrieking some more. For this hip hopaudience, cuddly and raunchy are anything but mutually exclusive. Andwith a parallel capacity for contradiction, Mase likes to believe theblack Barney can get respect. Harlem World brims withrevitalized hooks and sexy delights, some as sweet as the BillyLawrence duet "Love U So," some as disenchanted as the Lil'Cease/Jay-Z confab "Cheat on You"; "24 Hrs. to Live," with his old LOXcrew, is a devastating street conceit shouting doom andredemption. But the album protests too much about who's soft: "I shockniggaz/Who thought I was a pop nigga/You go against Mase you get yourwig rocked, nigga," or: "A nigga smack me I'ma smack him back/If itlead to the guns then that be that." And like Biggie, only within aradically narrower compass of experience, Mase is tortured by fear anddoubt: "Niggaz say they love me, they dont love me/I know deep downthey wanna slug me/I feel the vibe when they hug me."Rendered with Mase's unflappable indolence, these threats andforebodings take on an eerie pathos, but that doesn't mean they aren'talso pathetic, not to mention pathological. And when you scratch theboy toy you find more weird shit; like most cunt hounds, Mase isn'talways cuddly. In addition to "the four pimp rules," the "please nohickeys 'cause wifey's with me," the detailed list of freak-merequirements that climaxes with the sudden, brutal "If she make mynuts itch I kill that slut bitch," there's the throwaway boast on hishigh-spirited hit. "Never been arrested for nondomestic," he tellsKISS-FM and MTV, certain that he's cool after all because he never gotnabbed when he dealt dope for dough, only when he . . . what? I'm alittle afraid to find out.In part these bursts of misogyny are another species of boast,designed mainly to impress the boys on the block. Unfortunately, thatdoesn't guarantee they're lies. Cuddle plus raunch adds up to greatsex, as I hope a few shriekers at the Garden knew firsthand. Cuddleplus abuse is just some serious psychological dissonance. As hip hop'sfirst true boy toy, Mase radiates a physical charm that no Al or Teddyfan, male or female, should do without. But driven by his need formale acceptance and his fear of female power, he can't escape thesafe, ugly confines of mack daddydom. That would take more strength,and more genius, than pop operators normally muster these days.Village Voice, Dec. 16, 1997
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