Master P - Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me! (CD)

All Music Guide

Master P's early-'90s underground ventures blossomed on The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me, a wonderfully exploitative album driven by lo-fi G-funk beats and gutter-mentality gangsta rhymes. The album itself doesn't sound too much different from Master P's other early releases, still marred by spare-change quality production; however, it's the execution that makes The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me such an impressive step forward for the aspiring kingpin. Rather than simply emulate West Coast gangsta rappers like N.W.A. and Above the Law as he had on previous releases, Master P begins to carve out a niche of his own here. The Dirty South motifs still aren't quite yet apparent, but the griminess of the later releases certainly is, as nearly every song here references drug dealing and murder, particularly the standout title track. In fact, like all the other pre-Ghetto D albums, Master P is at his rawest here, willing to exploit whatever hardcore motifs he could in order to get a rise from his liste...ners. He's joined on practically every song by his Cali-era No Limit colleagues, including King George, C-Murder, Big Ed, Cali G, Sonya C, and Silkk the Shocker. Fellow Bay Area hardcore rappers JT the Bigga Figga and San Quinn join the festivities on "Playa Haterz." If you want to hear Master P at his most unapologetically exploitative, this is where to go -- if you can find it, that is. [No Limit re-released and re-packaged The Ghettos Tryin to Kill Me in 1997 after scoring its distribution deal with Priority. The original version from 1994 is significally different from the re-release, as Master P unfortunately cut the exceptional "Reverend Do Wrong" because of his beef with then-No Limit soldier King George and added two bonus tracks: the latter-day "Always Look a Man in the Eyes," which features Mystikal and Silkk the Shocker, and "Robbery," which is a C-Murder solo track. The "limited collector's edition" re-release also altered the sequencing and cover art and billed the album misleadingly as "Master P's first underground rap album."] - Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide Read more Less