Personnel include: Mase (rap vocals); Rashad, Cardan (vocals); Sean "P.Diddy" Combs (rap vocals); Rick Rock (various instruments). Producers: The Movement; Rick Rock; Tyrice Jones. Recording information: Fo'Reel Studios, Beverly Hills, CA; N'Key, Dayton, Ohio. After years as Puff Daddy's main protege, Mase exploded to the pinnacle of hip-hop success with the multi-platinum albums HARLEM WORLD (1997) and DOUBLE UP (1999). Then, as swiftly as he achieved that fame, he gave it all up, announcing his retirement from the rap game to enter the ministry. While many wrote it off as a passing fancy, he stuck with it for five years, until his desire to make music could apparently be suppressed no longer, and he emerged with his third record, WELCOME BACK. On the title track, Mase reworks a line from the classic WELCOME BACK, KOTTER theme song--"the game has all changed since I've been around"--which is impossible to debate in the ever-changing rap world, but Mase himself hasn't changed. He's still the easy-flowing, affable MC he was before the gospel grabbed him. He can still pin a clever rhyme on a catchy hook, as he does by incorporating Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" on "My Harlem Lullaby," or flex his muscles around a tender ballad as on "I Wanna Go." WELCOME BACK may follow five years of silence, but it sounds as if he never left.
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Track Listing |
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01. Welcome Back
02. Breathe, Stretch, Shake - (with P. Diddy)
03. Keep It On
04. My Harlem Lullaby
05. I Owe
06. Wasting My Time
07. Gotta Survive
08. Love You Need, The - (with Rashad)
09. Money Comes & Goes - (featuring Nelly)
10. I Wanna Go
11. Into What You Say
12. Do You Remember - (with Cardan) |
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