Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.

We're having Rat Month here on our show.

All September we have been bringing you nothing but interviews with rappers and this week

we're starting the show with Masterpiece now we heard one Masterpiece song it is probably

this wine they come say that was a monumental hit single easily Masterpiece biggest it sold

over a million copies in 1998 it's also a posse cut P shares versus on that track with his

label mates Mystical Mia X and Silk the Shocker and it's pretty unusual for a rapper's biggest hit

to be a posse cut but it's fitting for Masterpiece he was always more mogul than MC an inspired

businessman and talent spotter someone with a reputation for building good rappers into great ones

his label was called no limit records he founded it in 1991 when he was living in the bay area

but it blossomed when he moved back home to Louisiana no limit was home to a failings of stars

they were called the no limit soldiers among them were P's brothers C. murder and so the shocker

P's son Romeo Miller some of New Orleans biggest stars like Mia X and Mystical and even for a

little while Snoop Dogg in the story of Masterpiece there's plenty of success careers launch

millions of records sold there's also a lot of loss before he started rapping he played hoops at

a division one school until an injury ended his career before it really began then when he was

just 20 P's brother was killed during a robbery just last year his daughter died suddenly

as you'll hear in our conversation these tragedies have challenged Masterpiece and made him

stronger he's now a vocal advocate for mental wellness and speaks often about the power he finds

in his faith we'll talk about all that today but before we do let's hear another banger this is

from true Masterpiece group with C. murder and so the shocker it's called hoody ho

...