| No Way Out | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Puff Daddy & the Family |
| Cover: | No Way Out - Puff Daddy.jpg |
| Released: | July 22, 1997 |
| Recorded: | 1996–1997 |
| Length: | 77:52 |
| Producer: |
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| Next Title: | Forever |
| Next Year: | 1999 |
No Way Out is the debut studio album by American rapper Puff Daddy. It was released on July 22, 1997, by Arista and Bad Boy Records.[1] The album is credited to "Puff Daddy & the Family"; the latter act refers to guest appearances from his signees at Bad Boy Records.
Puff Daddy worked extensively with the Notorious B.I.G. and the Hitmen when creating the album, which saw a change in direction following the former's shooting and death months prior to release. This greatly affected Puff Daddy, and with a combination of aggressive and introspective lyrics, he conveys an emotionally vulnerable state representing the before and after of B.I.G.'s death. Additional production was provided by Jaz-O, while the album contains features from the Notorious B.I.G., Busta Rhymes, Mase, Lil' Kim, Carl Thomas, Jay-Z, Black Rob, the LOX, Ginuwine, Twista, Foxy Brown, Faith Evans, and 112.
No Way Out saw significant commercial success, debuting atop on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of over 561,000 copies. The album's singles also saw commercial success, particularly with its second, "I'll Be Missing You", which became a worldwide hit and the first hip hop song to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100. Released prior as its lead single, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" peaked atop the chart after several weeks, while its third, "Been Around the World" peaked at number two. No Way Out also earned critical success, receiving five nominations at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards, from which it won Best Rap Album.[2] It remains Puff Daddy's best selling album, with over 7 million copies shipped in the United States, and is considered a classic hip hop album. However, the album's reliance on sampling was criticized by Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, and MTV.
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 was 'no way out of things the way we were'. The album's lyrical content was inspired by the 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 Lawrence as well as engineers Axel Niehaus and Tony Maserati down to the Caribbean Sound Basin studio in Maraval, Trinidad, 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 material would later be used on No Way Out, Life After Death and other Bad Boy albums from 1997 to 1999.
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 spawned two Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles – "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and "I'll Be Missing You" – and the "number 2" singles "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 to Puff Daddy to be named as one of Forbes 40th highest-paid entertainers, along with southern hip hop rapper Master P and Oprah Winfrey.
The music video for "Been Around the World" features cameo appearances by Jennifer Lopez, playing Puff Daddy's love interest in a fictional storyline. Its positive reception led to widespread rumors of a personal relationship between the two in the media. This was later confirmed when Puff Daddy and Lopez dated for a period of time in the late 1990s. Furthermore, the music video for "Victory" was one of the most expensive videos ever made.[3] 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.
Since its release, the album has been evaluated in the context of the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry and deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The sampling of hits from past decades has also been debated by critics. In 1997, Neil Strauss of The New York Times called Puff Daddy the "king of sampled hits".[4]
No Way Out received mixed to positive reviews. Allmusic rated the album four out of five stars, with Leo Stanley calling it "a compelling, harrowing album" and "more substantial...than most mid-'90s hip-hop releases". For Vibe, Michael A. Gonzales praised the producers for creating "fierce, moody sonic mainpulations that are changing the soundscapes of pop music".
Positive reviews continued in later years. RapReviews.com rated the album 9 out of 10 points in 2007. " The replay value is astronomical, and the album is packed full of great beats, classic singles and excellent guest appearances," wrote Jesal Padania for the site. Reviewing the album in 2017, Pitchfork rated it 7.8 out of 10 points, regarding it as "a party record spotted with bouts of depression and sorrow" and "feel-good music that tops the charts".
Other reviews were less favorable, especially towards the lyrics and production. Grading the album a C+, Entertainment Weekly critic J. D. Considine pointed out "the obvious contradictions within their shoot-first, mourn-your-friends-later attitude" of Puff Daddy and his collaborators. Considine also questioned the choice of samples, in calling "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" and other tracks "shamelessly derivative". For Billboard, Havelock Nelson also criticized the samples on the album: "...the over -reliance on huge swathes of undiluted samples is simply clumsy, lazy, and demeaning to the sources." MTV acknowledged that Puff Daddy's repurposing of older songs was commercially successful but pointed out: "...there is a clear difference between sampling snippets and manipulating them into a beat...and just straight-away rapping over a relatively recent hit record."
For Rolling Stone, Nathan Brackett compared Puff Daddy's rapping style on the tracks with guest appearances by The Notorious B.I.G.: "B.I.G.'s rhymes are dynamic, authoritative; Puff Daddy's voice is thin, and he delivers his verses in a flat monotone." Brackett also regarded Puff Daddy as among "artists who merely bask in the reflected glory of the songs from which they draw."
Upon release, No Way Out was quickly met with commercial success. In Combs' home country of the United States, it debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 561,000 copies sold in its first week. Supported by five commercially successful singles, including "I'll Be Missing You", which, along with the album itself, served as a tribute to the then-recently deceased Notorious B.I.G.. The song became the first in hip hop to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for 11 consecutive weeks, while topping several other charts worldwide. The album's first single, released prior to B.I.G.'s death, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", also peaked atop the chart, for seven consecutive weeks.
Its fourth single, "Been Around the World", peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, while its fifth, "Victory" peaked within the top 20. On September 7, 2000, the album received septuple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for sales of 7,000,000 units in the United States.[5] As of 2024, it remains Combs' most commercially successful release.
All tracks, with the exception of "I Got the Power", were produced by members of Bad Boy's in-house production team, the Hitmen. The tracklisting was slightly altered on the album's clean version, where it was shortened down to thirteen songs.[6]
Notes
Sample credits
Credits for No Way Out adapted from AllMusic.[7]
| Chart (1997) | Position | |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[8] | 99 | |
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[9] | 21 | |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[10] | 71 | |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[11] | 74 | |
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[12] | 86 | |
| European Top 100 Albums (Music & Media)[13] | 41 | |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[14] | 36 | |
| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[15] | 45 | |
| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[16] | 86 | |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[17] | 21 | |
| US Billboard 200[18] | 10 | |
| US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)[19] | 5 |