Mack 10 followed the number two-charting Westside Connection album with his second album, Based on a True Story, and its lead single, "Backyard Boogie", in 1997. The album became his most successful, peaking at number 14 on the Billboard album chart, and confirmed his quick ascendance to fame. Moreover, the album is generally considered to be Mack 10's career highlight: it features a modest number of guests (Snoop Dogg, E-40, Ice Cube), top-notch G-funk-era producers (Ant Banks, Soopafly), and little of the filler that would begin to populate his successive releases. Mack 10 returned a year later with another Top 20 album, The Recipe, which is notable for its abundance of guests. In fact, only one song featured Mack 10 alone; every other song featured at least one guest, if not more; everyone from Master P and Mystikal to Jermaine Dupri and Ol' Dirty Bastard. Following the extravagencies of The Recipe in 1997, Mack 10's career began to slowly spiral downward, much like the West Coast gangsta rap scene he rode to fame. When Mack 10 released The Paper Route, in 2000, two years after The Recipe, listeners similarly weren't very interested.
The relative disappointment of The Paper Route brought Mack 10's souring relationship with Priority Records to an end, and along came Cash Money Records, who happily signed the rapper to a contract. The partnership seemed somewhat unlikely. Cash Money was a leading Dirty South label with a small roster of in-house rappers such as Juvenile and Lil' Wayne; however, the label was looking to expand its roster as well as its reach, and Mack 10 offered it a great opportunity to unite the West Coast and Dirty South. The resulting album, Bang or Ball (2001), neither topped the charts nor garnered substantial attention despite boasting "Hate in Yo Eyes", a Dr. Dre production that interpolated the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive". The album nonetheless signaled a new direction for Mack 10, who sounded surprisingly comfortable working with one of the Dirty South's premier producers, Mannie Fresh. Less than a year later in summer 2002 came Mack 10 Presents Da Hood, a Hoo Bangin' release prominently featuring numerous up-and-coming West Coast rappers: K-Mac, Deviossi, Skoop, Cousteau, and Techniec. More importantly, though, the album featured "L.A. for Ya", an anthemic song that was customized for the West Coast's leading radio stations as well as for LA Lakers and Clippers home games. The customized versions worked, and the song garnered quite a bit of airplay on the West Coast, making it one of Mack 10's biggest hits in years. Ghetto, Gutter & Gangsta followed the next year, and then Hustla's Handbook in 2005.
Sound Files (MP3)
Foe Life (w/Nate Dogg & Ice Cube) - from the album Mack 10
Tight To Def (w/T-Boz) - from the album The Paper Route
