Master P emerged from the rap underground in the mid-90s. Having grown up in the third ward of the Calliope Projects in uptown New Orleans he drew on his experience to produce gangsta rap, the music he eventually became famous for. His parents had divorced when he was a teenager and his mother moved to Richmond, California. He spent a great deal of time traveling between the two places. As a teenager he stayed away from the drug and hustling culture and devoted himself to basketball. He was granted a sports scholarship to the University of Houston, but chose instead to go to Richmond California and study business at Oakland’s Merit Junior Business College. After his grandfather’s death in the late 80s he inherited $10,000, which he used to open up an independent record store in Richmond, CA, No Limit Records.

In the mid-90s he changed the store to a recording label, adding a production team that called themselves Beats by the Pound, and began producing gangsta rap. While working the music underground, Master P had learned that his audience was looking for hard-core, no-holds-barred, explicit gangsta rap. It was a genre that most companies were pulling away from because of the controversial nature of the music, but Master P started producing as much of it as he could.

What would have been considered a risk by the rest of the industry proved to be an excellent business strategy, bringing in millions of dollars in the latter half of the decade. His album The Ghetto’s Try’in to Kill Me, produced in 1994, was in the charts for over six months, although much of his other work has been even more successful. In September of 1999, Master P was listed as number 28 in Fortune Magazine’s article “Americas Richest 40 Under 40.” His music includes gangsta rap and hip-hop. He plays basketball for the American Basketball League. He has continued to do well in the industry, forming the group Tru with his brothers C-Murder and Sikk the Shocker.