Getty Image
Mase had a front-row seat to the beef between the East Coast and West Coast as a high-profile member of the Bad Boy Records crew, but he traded rapping for preaching a couple of years after the murder of the Notorious B.I.G. While he’s mostly shied away from discussing his younger years, he did recently share a wild story about the harrowing ordeal he experienced after the slaying courtesy of some gang members who were seemingly out for more blood.
Mase has taken a pretty wild ride through life when you consider he was a highly-touted high school basketball player who made a name for himself playing alongside fellow Harlem product Cam’ron. Both men had dreams of making it to the NBA, but they eventually pivoted to music and were members of the hip-hop group Children of the Corn before getting their big break in the 1990s.
After signing a record deal with Bad Boy in 1996, Mase linked up with the Notorious B.I.G. on a number of tracks (none more notable than “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems”) and he was in Los Angeles when the man also known as “Biggie Smalls” was gunned down there in a drive-by shooting on March 9, 1997 (the murder—which transpired around six months after Tupac Shakur was killed—remains unsolved, although there are plenty of theories concerning the motive and culprit).
Mase kicked off a fairly unexpected second act when he linked back up with Cam’ron to co-host It Is What It Is, a podcast primarily devoted to the two men talking about sports with an occasional assist from regular guest O.J. Simpson.
However, Killa Cam has recently introduced a new segment where he asks Mase a question or two about stories from his past, and we got some insight into what unfolded in the immediate wake of Biggie’s death on Monday’s episode.
Mase recalled being in a hotel room with a “young lady” (presumed to be Brandy) but was unable to leave for a pretty insane reason, saying:
“I actually was trapped in the hotel. There were probably about 70 or so Bloods in the hallway. I couldn’t even leave my room.
After B.I.G. got killed, they were probably looking for more Bad Boy artists and I couldn’t even leave the room until [Diddy’s bodyguard] Gene Deal came to get me.”
He also implied some of the major players at Bad Boy left him to fend for himself after escaping L.A. as soon as possible without him after the shooting occurred, which he hinted (understandably) marked the beginning of the end of his relationship with the label.