Timeless Tuesday: Return of Mase

For this Timeless Tuesday, I want to take you guys back a few years to the mighty return of Mase to the rap game. In 2004, Mase dropped an album called Welcome Back. This was his first album release since his classic Double Up album in 1999. In between these albums, Mase decided to retire from the rap game and became a pastor for a church in the south. Apparently this life got slow so Mase decided to return to rap with a new album and a noticeably new style. Mase’s return to rap came with a new squeaky clean image and profanity-free raps. This is a dramatic change from his “Murda Mase” moniker during his Children of the Corn days. Either way, Mase released a couple videos to go with this cookie cutter, happy go lucky album and rap fans HATED it. There was something about it that didn’t feel genuine. Fans wondered what happened to the Harlem World version Mase?

Needless to say, this movement didn’t last long. Though the album went gold by selling a little over 500,000 copies, Mase would eventually retire AGAIN. He attempted to return again and resorted back to his potty mouth ways and it ruined the prior integrity of his new clean image. Fans became quickly tired of Mase and forced him to take another hiatus. More recently, Wale put Mase on a remix to his track “Slight Work” alongside Diddy and French Montana. His verse was fine but wasn’t enough to light a fire to reignite his career. The Mase chronicles are an interesting one but hopefully he has closed the rap chapter for good. Since being a pastor didn’t work and rap isn’t the place for him anymore, maybe he can pick up a new hobby. I heard UPS is hiring…

By Malcolm J. Gray

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