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No Way Out (Puff Daddy album)

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Released
  
July 1, 1997

Label
  
Bad Boy

Artist
  
Puff Daddy & The Family

Length
  
77:52

No Way Out (1997)
  
Forever (1999)

Release date
  
1 July 1997

No Way Out (Puff Daddy album) httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaen55bNo

Recorded
  
November 1996 - April 1997

Producer
  
Sean "Puffy" Combs (exec.), Christopher Wallace (also exec.), Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie (also exec.), The Hitmen (Steven "Stevie J" Jordan, Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, Nashiem Myrick, Carlos "6 July" Broady, Jeffery "J-Dub" Walker and Yogi), Black Jeruz, Big Jaz

Genres
  
Hip hop music, Contemporary R&B, Gangsta rap, East Coast hip hop

Awards
  
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album

Nominations
  
American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Album

Similar
  
The Saga Continues, Press Play, Forever, MMM (Money Making M, Last Train to Paris

Diddy no way out full album


No Way Out is the debut studio album by American hip hop recording artist, songwriter and record producer Puff Daddy. It was released on July 1, 1997, by his Bad Boy record label. The label's official crediting as "The Family", featuring guest appearances from his label-mates and other artists. The production on the album was provided by Puff Daddy (real name Sean Combs), alongside with a variety of the members from the production group, called The Hitmen. Puff Daddy was also serving as a executive producer alongside The Notorious B.I.G. and Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie (of The Hitmen). It contains the generally introspective content based on his friend and rapper The Notorious B.I.G., who died from the shooting on March 9, 1997, which affected Combs emotionally. The album's content consists largely of aggressive lyrics but also includes elements of positive emotion.

Contents

The album received generally mixed to positive reviews from music critics, who generally wrote positively about its emotional feel and its production, but were divided in their reviews towards both Puff Daddy's rapping and songwriting. The album earned Combs five nominations at the 40th Grammy Awards in 1998, winning the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

Background

Speaking about the album's title, Puff Daddy said that because of The Notorious B.I.G.’s death on March 9, 1997, he had felt that there is 'no way out' of things the way we were. The album's lyrical content is filled with some of his emotions that he felt while mourning the loss of his close friend. In the song, titled “Is This the End?”, he raps about experiencing the drive-by shooting that happened in Los Angeles, California, which took The Notorious B.I.G.'s life. The album was originally called Puff Daddy & The Goodfellas, then slated to be titled Hell Up in Harlem, but following the death of The Notorious B.I.G., he decided to switch the album's title to No Way Out. As discussed in "Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of The Notorious B.I.G." by Cheo Hodari Coker, the weight of the East Coast/West Coast rivalry and the accompanying threats had taken its toll on Combs and those around him. It was decided that they needed to get away and become focused on making hits. So, Combs brought producers Steven "Stevie J." Jordan, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, Nashiem Myrick and Ron "AMEN-RA" Lawrence as well as engineers Axel Niehaus and Tony Maserati down to the Caribbean Sound Basin studio in Maraval, Trindad, along with everything that they needed to craft hits. In the book, Puffy is quoted as saying, "For the next two years, I wanna have radio on lock. Call the girlfriend, wifey, or whatever, and let ‘em know that you’re not gonna be around for a few weeks. We’re gonna get away from all this drama, put our heads together, and when we come back, we’re coming back with hits." The resultant material would later be used on No Way Out, Life After Death and future Bad Boy albums from 1997 to 1999.

Accolades

In the United States, the album topped on the Billboard charts, with 561,000 copies sold in the first week. The album topped music charts worldwide for 24 non-consecutive weeks. In 1998, No Way Out would win the Grammy Award for the Best Rap Album. On September 7, 2000, the album was certified seven-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 1997, among the ten songs that reached at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list, four of them belonged to Bad Boy Records. The album has spawned two Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles such as "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and "I'll Be Missing You", and the "number 2" singles such as "Been Around the World" and "It's All About the Benjamins". The longest reign of the label's four hits was this single "I'll Be Missing You", which topped the charts for 11 weeks. The melody for "I'll Be Missing You" is sampled from The Police's 1983 hit "Every Breath You Take". This successful album led towards Puff Daddy to be named as one of Forbes' 40th highest-paid entertainers, along with the names of the southern hip hop rapper Master P and Oprah Winfrey.

The music video for "Been Around the World" features a cameo appearances by an actress Jennifer Lopez, playing Puff Daddy's love interest in a fictional story line. Its positive reception led to widespread rumors of a personal relationship in the media. Furthermore, the music video for "Victory" was one of the most expensive videos ever made. The song titled "No Way Out" performed by Puff Daddy, appeared on the soundtrack for the film Money Talks (1997), but is not included on this album.

Commercial performance

Upon its release, No Way Out was a significant commercial success, particularly in the United States where it reached number one on the Billboard 200 in its first week, selling 561,000 copies. It also produced five commercially successful singles, the most successful of these being the worldwide hit "I'll Be Missing You", a tribute song aimed at The Notorious B.I.G., which became the first rap song ever to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and remained at the top of the chart for 11 consecutive weeks, whilst topping several other charts worldwide. The other four singles, the Billboard hits "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", "It's All About the Benjamins", "Been Around the World" and "Victory", were also commercially successful, and all except the latter peaked in the top two positions of the Billboard Hot 100. On September 7, 2000, the album was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 7,000,000+ copies in the United States: to date, it remains Combs' most commercially successful album.

Track listing

All tracks except "Young G's" were produced by members of Bad Boy Records' in house production team, The Hitmen.

Personnel

Credits for No Way Out adapted from Allmusic.

Songs

1No Way Out (intro)1:22
2Victory4:56
3Been Around the World [Explicit]5:26

References

No Way Out (Puff Daddy album) Wikipedia