As a kid, Mase was a good student who spent much of his spare time playing basketball or in church. And until the age of 13 he managed to avoid the lure of dangerous ghetto games. When he began showing the slightest sign of getting caught up in the world of Harlem street economics, he got shipped back down South. "My mother saw I was becoming more negative than positive," Mase recalls. "So she kind of tried to rescue me."
After returning to New York two years later, older and wiser, Mase‘s interest in music began to sprout "from nowhere." As he remembers it, "I just used to like to play basketball. And as one of the guys going to games on the team bus, I just tried to rhyme like everybody else. At first they used to tease me about my voice, saying I talked slow. But, as I saw it, that’s what made me unique."
For encouragement, Mase turned to neighborhood MCs. "They always used to tell me that if I wanted a rap career, I had to be serious," he says. The fledgling performer also received inspiration from young manager Damon Dash and his clique of MCs that included Jay-Z and Big Al McGruff. "They all influenced me in different ways," Mase remembers. "For instance, I liked Jay-Z because he was such a slick
talker, and McGruff was cool ’cause he always came across with so much arrogance."
From spending time in hip-hop hangouts, rapping, dancing and having fun, Mase made the acquaintance of more
established performers, including
Keith Murray, MOP,
Redman and
Busta Rhymes. While in Atlanta to hook up with
Jermaine Dupri last year, he ran into Sean "Puffy" Combs. "I rapped for him," remembers Mase, "and when I got back to New York he put me on the 112 remix. It was all love after that."
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