See, blaring out of the sports car’s hidden speakers, from an unlabeled CD, are twelve rough cuts the boy who used to call himself Mase Murder says are for a new album. Some of the tracks were done in Puff Daddy’s celebrated Times Square recording studio, others in a private spot in the Bahamas where Mase and most of Bad Boy Entertainment’s roster travel last December to hide out and record the music they hope will be ’99’s hot shit. But today, the beats are in Atlanta, Georgia, the peachtree capitol of the world, because this is where Mase will finish the as-yet-untitled follow-up album to his triple platinum Harlem World debut. Atlanta’s the place where Mase says he can, "relax, and enjoy my life," a place where he can whip a $100,000 ride around town without a hassle, and the place he can marinate on new ventures and old styles.

Nigga if you love me, I love you/
The same way you trust me, I trust you/
The same way you hug me nigga, I’ll hug you/
But the first time it’s fuck me nigga, it’s fuck you

The song is a rowdy, tear-it-down street anthem with thunderous, clashing bass lines and fired-up lyrics. Think "Money, Cash, Hoes" times five.

"They want Murder? I that what they want?" he says shouting. "I’m telling you, son, after this album people are gonna look at Mase and say that kid is for real. No doubt. That’s what they gonna say, 'cause I got something to prove."

Twenty one year old Mason Betha, Jr., was born in Jacksonville, Florida with his father’s first name and a twin sister, Stase, who arrived five minutes after he did. A couple of months later, his father rolled out and left his mom alone in a household with their six children (three boys, three girls), a decision that left Mason, like many of his peers, without a man in the house to be a male mentor. But by the time he was five, his mother had moved to Harlem, and after tabling a talent for drawing, an interest of being a psychiatrist, and dreams of NBA money, Mase turned his attention to music.

"I remember for years I used to invite my friends over to listen to his demos," Stase says. "They used to always think he was hot and wonder why this song or that song wasn’t on the radio."

"I was kinda like the block savior," Mase remembers, sitting in the basement gym of New York’s Riverside Church where a young girls basketball team he has put together practices for an upcoming game. "Heads used to always feel that if worse came to worse, Mase got us; I think because they knew I had brothers that did it wrong so much. If I didn’t know what to do, I definitely knew what not to do. And he got lucky. I grew up on a block with ten guys. Now eight of them have been killed, and the other two are still in jail. So anybody you see me with now is not my day-one people, because my day-one people are all in heaven, or hell, or wherever they at.

"It’s like if half of the people in the world actually knew my real story," Mase continues, his eyes focused on the court, "they would be like, ‘How could he smile everyday?’ I know what it’s like to carry a friend to the hospital and don’t get him there in time; I know what it’s like to be in a neighborhood and see your whole block get wiped out; or to be in a house with no heat and the fuckin’ fish bowl has turned to ice and you can’t take a shit in the toilet because it’s all frozen over. So when I say ‘I’m happy to be here,’ I’m happy to be here and every time I get something good, I got to exalt it."

The girls on the court are ballin’. Slapping and pushing as hard as any group of guys ever would, they race up and down the worn-out wooden floor, while being yelled at by Mase’s former high school basketball coach. As rapper legends go, Mase was the prime time point guard at Manhattan Center, his East Harlem high school. "I always used to walk into the game and ask where the gold trophies was at," Mase says as he gets ready to check himself into the game for an injured player, 'cause somebody else was going to get silver!" The girls’ team, made up of teenagers who aren’t allowed to play for their local schools because of grades, is the first manifestation of Mase’s All Out Foundation, an organization the rapper started to sponsor youth programs in Harlem. Two of the girls also spend a good amount of time with Mase off the court. You would think they would take it easy on him.

"There are a lot of MCs who just hold it down for their block or borough. But you have to have a lot more versatility than that. Thats why I love Harlem World, because they got so many flows."

"You ain’t all that, Mase," one of the girls yells while running up to double team. "At least I ain’t the one doing Rugrats videos," says the other, watching their smiling young benefactor fly by them, waving his arms in victory after scoring three in a row. "I’ve just learned how to make it through everything," he says, now sitting in his post-game ride: a fly limo. "My brothers were always crazy, so I never had too much to worry about growing up. But I got a moms that’s been diagnosed [with cancer], and I never saw my father, so I grew up with a lot of bitterness; I just don’t show it that much. But the more New York cats go to jail, the more they get in tune with real niggas from around the way, they start to find out: that nigga Mase is real. Don’t let that shit he doing with Puff fool you."

You’ve heard the story about Mase, the young Harlem MC who had been trying for years to get put on, until he went to Atlanta to meet Jermaine Dupri and bumped into Puff Daddy. With major game and a little fear, he rhymed for the celeb-producer over the party beat the club’s DJ was bumping in the background and got offered a deal after sixteen bars. The rhyme he did at Club 112 then became the rhyme he used in the "Only You" remix, the song that brought Mase’s lispy baritone and fitted baseball hat to speakers and screens across America.

You can hum if you want to/
come if you want to...

"We had to beg Puff to put that verse on there, ‘cause he was just going to keep Biggie’s part," remembers Country, Mase’s manager, and the brotha who first made introductions at the club. After that single, Mase would appear on two more multi-platinum hits: Puffy’s "Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down" and Biggie’s "Mo Money, Mo Problems," smash crossover record that perfectly set the stage for Harlem World, Mase’s first album.

"When I first came into the game, niggas wasn’t going platinum or double platinum. Cats felt like if they went gold, they won. I remember thinking that too. I was like, I’m with Bad Boy, I’m going to go gold!"

But hip-hop wasn’t about small numbers at the time, the music was quickly becoming the countries most dominant form of entertainment, and the world was buying in without looking over it’s shoulder. It was a commercial phenomenon that was centered around some good and very strategically produced music, and was the by-product, in an awful way, of the hype and hoopla that surrounded the deaths of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. Mase, in the right place at the right time, was a smiling, lets-just-have-fun type of cat who became the perfect balm for the culture’s wounds (hence the title of his first single, "Feel So Good") and the perfect sideman to the ubiquitous Puff Daddy, who had scored big a few months earlier with the dance anthem/eulogy "I’ll Be Missing You," and his emotionally charged No Way Out album.

But by doing so, by becoming our most identifiable commercial artist, Mase had to, in effect, put on the emperor’s new clothes. Bright, fluorescent fighter pilot suits became the crossover look of choice, and the outfits will always be remembered for defining the era. But, as he relates from a room in the gold-plated Trump International Hotel in New York, that glam-slam gear wasn’t put on without a fight.

"The first thing that came to my mind when Puff showed me the outfit for ‘Mo Money, Mo Problems,’ was when Easy E dissed Dr. Dre and had him in the video with that glitter suit on. I said ‘I’m not gonna wear that! You got me looking like the Temptations. They gonna kill me when I go back to the block.’ I remember Damon Dash was the one who told me it would probably look good on film under the lights, but when they brought out the silver one for ‘Feel So Good’ I said, ‘Is you crazy? What is this...my image?" Mase gets excited, his voice rising and falling.

"But when I started seeing how Puff was pumping a nigga and heads were really thinking I was the shit, so I was like, ‘fuck it, I may as well run with it. As long as I don’t have to kiss anybody’s ass. Just make mines baggy and put a pair of Nike Airs with it!’ I was open. I remember when I called home and said, ‘We about to be rich, Ma!"

But for the former Mase Murder, the outfit wasn’t the only thing that changed. Murder had to change his flow to match much of the sample-heavy, pop-appeal music that was blowing him up.

"Country had told me before we met Puff that if I just slowed down my lyrics, and rhymed more like how I talk, I would get signed. And that summer I got a deal. At first with ‘Only You,’ I thought I sounded like Father MC or something, but I remember when Biggie introduced me at a show at the Apollo. He had asked me earlier if I wanted to go on because he knew he had to do a few extra minutes, and I told him I didn’t care. But I was mad scared. I’m from Harlem, I know how people get booed. And all the other rappers were in the audience. But after he did "Brooklyn’s Finest" and said, ‘Yo, I got somebody from the World,’ everybody stood up and started clapping. Then I came out of the back rocking my verse and everybody went crazy!"

"Later that night, Puff had brought me a car, and I went straight to my brother’s projects to show everybody. ‘Hey yo Blink, come down! Come down now, nigga. It’s on!"

The happiness when Mase talks about his shine moment is written all over the huge dimples that appear on his cheeks when he can’t hold back that infectious grin. It didn’t happen that long ago, and, of course, it’s the moment every rap child dreams about.

"For six years I was rhyming hard for anybody that wanted to get it - unsigned artists, kids on the block, whoever - and it didn’t make me a dime. And then I did it the other way and became a millionaire in one year! So in my mind I’m thinking, ‘Should I do what had me stranded for six years, or should I do what’s proven to work?’ And ever since then, everything I’ve put out been platinum. I don’t know what’s it’s like to have anything gold. I even brought Brian McKnight back. And I even had Puff hot. Puff went six million, and Puff ain’t even a rapper! So at the end of somewhere, you gotta say, ‘Shorty do his thing.’ You ain’t gotta say I’m the best MC, cause I would hate for you to put a crown on me that somebody else died for, but when people talk about respect, who are you gonna respect?"

"I grew up on a block with ten guys. Now eight of them have been killed, and the other two are still in jail. So anybody you see me with now is not my day-one people, because my day-one people are in heaven, or hell... "

On a cold winter’s night, there’s still a lot going on in the streets of Harlem. Sistas try to walk fast and stay warm in tight pairs of blue, stonewashed jeans; young street cats huddle together outside stickered-up bodegas talking and planning and rhyming; lonely drugheads wander aimlessly, looking for a place to smoke and hide without ever lifting up their gaze from the pavement; and cars, lots of cars, move to and fro, some stopping at red lights, others being stopped by them. At least that’s how it looks from the inside of a tinted up Range Rover, today’s big-dog vehicle of choice. Mase doesn’t drive his truck very often, but a rap star couldn’t really floss in less, and Harlem is, of course, his world.

"I don’t care where a nigga from, everybody got their own style from Harlem. You either got your shit from Harlem, or you watched niggas from Harlem and duplicated them." No matter, because now this native son has a crew of his own for imitators. The group Harlem World is the first release on Mase’s new All Out Records label. The seven members of the group - Loon, Blinky Blink, Sugar J, Meeno, Cardan, Huddy Combs and Baby Stase - were all hand-picked by Mr. Betha for their aggressive talent and rugged Harlem loyalties, and each of them, like young tiger cubs, is eager to get out into the world. And Harlem World is a family affair in more ways than just neighborhood. Stase is Mase’s twin sister, Blink is his older brother, and Huddy touts himself as one of Sean Comb’s third cousins.

"We all kinda grew up together," Loon begins. "We all came from different areas of Harlem but we are aware of each other’s presence because we were all like generals of our respective crews."

The record, Mase presents Harlem World: The Movement, is a well-produced posse album that bounces the sound of the world’s most famous neighborhood off of seven young, energetic, and strikingly different MCs. While Loon and Meeno have a grittier, more hard-core sound, Huddy is all party, Sugar J is laid back, and Blink, in Stase’s words, "thinks he’s the cutest, so he gonna rap about being cute."

But what’s most notable about the album is that it is not a Bad Boy project. The All Out label is a deal done through Jermaine Dupri’s So So Def label, a surprising move that left some wondering why Puffy’s premier artist would take his business to the soundboards of a competing CEO. While Puff has a right to veto the songs Mase appears on, the group and the project, ultimately, have little to do with him. But there is a connection. Deandre "Free" Maiden, VP of Operations for So So Def, was the man who brokered the All Out record deal with Mase. Free worked Mase’s Harlem World album as Bad Boy’s marketing manager until November ’97, forming a relationship with the artist that carried over to his new job with Jermaine Dupri.

"I remember when I told JD about our opportunity to give Mase a label," Free says via phone from his New York office. "I said if I tell you this, you’ll never believe it."

"Did you have to clear anything with Puff first?"

"No, but I knew Puff always encourages everybody to get money, and I [knew] he would respect this as a business deal. Initially, we were thinking of asking Puff to produce some tracks, but then Mase decided against it. I think he wanted to make Puff proud and do it on his own."

This coming of age feeling is affirmed by Mase’s rather paternal behavior around the group. He came up with most of the song concepts on the record, and all of Harlem World, at least for now, is fiercely loyal, describing their multi-platinum mentor as being a hard but great teacher. Before they do any interviews, the young rhymers always privately meet with Mase to discuss the critical do’s and dont’s of dealing with the press, the same meetings Biggie used to demand from Lil’Kim and his group Junior M.A.F.I.A.

"Mase showed us it’s the bounce that really counts, it’s the melody of the song," says Meeno, reciting a recent lesson. "You can’t just rhyme, you have to allow a person who don’t know exactly about the streets to still relate to the music."

"See, I could tell any artist the formula they need to get any kind of audience," Mase boasts after appeasing a cop who pulled us over for not turning on the Rover’s back lights. "If you want recognition, that’s easy, all you have to do is diss or battle somebody. If you want respect, then you take it right to the person the people you’re concerned about already respect."

What about being a world wide figure?

"There are a lot of MCs who just hold it down for their block or their borough. But you have to have more versatility than that. That’s why I love Harlem World, because they got so many different flows. The thing I had over other people, why I was always a crowd favorite, is because a nigga could say a rhyme better than me, but I’d always have more style." Or maybe more playful dance moves, like the smiling, arm-waving number he did for the "Been Around The World" remix.

"It’s like Ruff Ryders [DMX production camp] always used to take care of me, but when I signed with Puff, he was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do commercial records because all the stuff I was doing with the Lox was so underground. He would say, ‘Why do I need three of the same acts?"

But what about DMX or Jay-Z’s recent success on the charts? Both of their albums are decidedly non-commercial, and both have stayed at #1 for weeks.

"I love their music, but soon you’ll have too much hard-core and you gonna want to party again. Everybody can’t tell me they’re a killer!"

And now for the drama: Despite his pop status, or maybe because of it, Mase has been at the center of more than a few public disputes this year. The first was with rapper Cam’Ron, a childhood friend Mase grew up with in Harlem. They ran together, balled together, and actually rhymed together in a group called Children of the Corn with another kid, now deceased, called Bloodshed. When Cam’Ron signed to Lance "Un" Rivera’s Untertainment label in 1997, Mase and Cam had a plan to take the world by storm. "Cam was gonna be hard and be my bridge back to the streets," Mase recalls ruefully, "and I was gonna give him the crossover fans he didn’t have. That would have been a hot combination right there, and that’s why I was mad when they made him wear those glasses and all that."

See I feel that I’m like Jesus, yo. I walked in all this shiny shit so cats wouldn’t have to, and I wanted to tell Cam, ‘Yo, I killed myself for y’all. You ain’t gotta put that on too!"

After Mase appeared with his man in the thugged-out ".357" video, and then sung the hook for the melodic track "Horse & Carriage," things turned sour. Mase claims he never got paid for any of the work he did on Cam’s Confessions of Fire LP, and because of that, at the last minute, didn’t show up for the "Horse & Carriage" video. Mase and Un actually had a brief scuffle over the no-show a few weeks later.

"At the time I was getting $100,000 for sixteen bars," Mase says. "I did four songs with Cam and appeared in his first video, and they never paid me nothing. It’s like I did it ‘cause that’s my man, but I felt his record label should step up. When I saw Cam I told him, ‘If you need the money, then you keep the money. But we not gonna make everyone else rich. I could love Un and I could love Puff, but whatever we go through yo, this shit is not for them."

Un, via cell phone, responded gruffly: "If those were what Mase’s fees were, then he never successfully represented them to me." But Cam’Ron, who admits that he hasn’t spoken to Mase since the incident went down, felt it was simply a lack of communication between two former best friends.

"I have no problem with Mase over the video," he said from the New York studio where he has been working on a new album. "That was a situation with Untertainment. Even that line on the remix didn’t really have to do with me. (On the "Horse & Carriage" remix, Cam’Ron’s labelmate Charli Baltimore slights Mase at the end of her verse.) But he’s taking a lot of other people’s words about me, and he doesn’t ever come to me about it. I just wish I knew how to get in touch with him."

"When Charli and them did that song, the first thing was, ‘Yo, you gotta answer that,’ Mase says. "But I’m not wit that. If you keep talking about me, all that lets me know is that I’m on your mind," a mature response for a situation, that, unfortunately, arose again late in ’98. This time Jay-Z laid a verse heads interpreted as dissing Bad Boy’s iced down prince.

"That shit is stupid," Mase responds again, eager to quell the increasingly negative rumors of beef between him and Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella Records. "I went about it the man way and spoke to Jay directly. I admit that for a time I was running around real mad, like I’m gonna step to them niggas. But then when I really thought about it, I realized it was all about my ego, and I was like, damn, how can life go form sugar to shit so fast?

"I see it like this: Every time you hear Mase rhyme, what is it about? Money, some bitches, and some good living. So what would two nigga who got money, bitches and good living be arguing about? I may not have liked what he said but I still like his music. I love Tupac’s music, and Tupac was dissing Bad Boy by name."

I was Murder, P Diddy made me pretty...
Back in suburban Atlanta, a new, more mature Mason Betha, the games latest twenty-something entrepreneur, munches on some two-for-$1 cookies as he whips his two-seater Benz in and out of the lanes on one of Buckhead’s slow-moving parkways. The Harlem World record is about to drop, he’s laid down most of the lyrics for his new album, and to help make his life easier, Puff has just signed a new young gun to let him sleep in mornings. "I told Shyne it was his turn to be waking up early, running around doing appearances with Puff. I paid my dues. I played the Batman & Robin role. Just like Biggie passed the torch to me when I got on."

And the rapper who has rechristened himself Murder is still amped off the thoughts of his new solo album, which is due later in the spring. It’s a record to ‘get my name back," a record he’s thinking about calling Game’s Over. The cover art would show him sitting in front of a locker room filled with all the outfits and shiny suits he wore in all his videos. They would be hanging up behind him, never to be worn again.

"My whole goal this year is to just be that nigga," he says while a new track called "Another Story To Tell" blasts in the background. "My first album I gave the people what they wanted, but this time it’s gonna be a whole different Mase. When I wrote Harlem World, I was on the road with Puff every day, and there wasn’t too much hard-core music I could make out of that scenario. But this album, I was in the ‘hood and it’s going to be a 100% me. No glitter, no nothing." He laughs.

"And then I’m going to do my country album. I’m gonna take every song, flip ‘em like the Jamaicans do, and put Leann Rimes on the remix!"