Friesen’s Top Five List #51: Top Five No Limit Records Album Covers

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m about to drop a bomb on you…actually, it’s two bombs, two bombs that are amazingly delayed, bombs that I wish I could say got lost on their way from the bomber to the ground, but the truth is that they never left the bomb-bay doors.

The first bomb is an announcement.  Over the last few months, I’ve been putting on a weekly comedy show at Eastside Tavern.  It’s a good time, always hilarious, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  Along the way, my genius artist brother David has been making amazing fliers advertising the show, and this week, he has seriously outdone himself.  He made this flier, and it has taken the breath away from everyone who’s seen it.

Here comes the second bomb: to celebrate the creation of this magnificent flier, I have decided to make a celebratory Top Five List: The Top Five No Limit Records Album Covers.  This flier is so damn good that my next list is going to be a continuation of the celebration: The Top Five Cash Money Records Album Covers.

That’s the future, but right now we have business at hand.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am one of the world’s foremost scholars on the subject of No Limit Records history.  A lot of white kids my age may have owned Master P’s “Ghetto D” or some stray Mystikal album, but I was no ordinary white kid.  I owned every No Limit album I could find.  I had Skull Duggery’s “Hoodlum Fo Life,” Big Ed’s “The Assassin,” everything by Mr. Serv-On; I even dutifully bought Mia X’s “Unladylike Diva” even though I didn’t like her at all.  What I’m trying to say is that I either genuinely liked No Limit, or when I want to create a lame, contrived personality for myself, I tend to over commit.  It’s probably the first one.

Even though I could wax on very eloquently about how Fiend’s 1998 album “There’s One In Every Family” was one of the most underrated pieces of musical production of the 1900’s (“The Streets Ain’t Safe” was a classic), that’s not what this list is about.  This list is about the glorious cover art that came to define the No Limit brand.  Rest assured that I’m nothing short of an expert on this too, as I’m sure I’ve seen them all.

Alright, it’s the Top Five No Limit Records Album Covers.  Let’s get it on.

I have to admit that this is a list subject that is far too big for me to cover in a simple five-entry list, but I’m afraid that I may be turning these lists into “top tens” too easily.  I decided to balance out these two concerns by handing out a few honorable mentions before we get to the list proper.

Honorable Mention- C-Murder’s “Life or Death”

This was one of my favorite of the No Limit albums in my younger years, but these sentiments alone aren’t enough to earn C-Murder (who is “incapable of the crime of murder) a spot on the list.  I appreciate how busy the album cover is, what with the spider web, the rattle snake, the bird, C-Murder’s skeletonized right extremities, and the skull being covered by the parental advisory sticker.  However, though the cover is cohesive to a theme, it’s not flashy enough.  It is indicative of what I call “Early No Limit Art,” or “Antediluvian No Limit.”

Honorable Mention- Soulja Slim’s “Give It To ‘Em Raw”

Speaking of a busy album cover.  The thing about Soulja Slim is that he never quite fit in with the rest of the No Limit artists.  Though they referred to themselves as “the No Limit Soldiers,” they never seemed to take it as seriously as Soulja Slim.  He would have fit in much better at Cash Money (“Cash Money is an army, nigga, a Navy, nigga” –B.G.), so it comes as no surprise that Soulja Slim eventually jumped ship to Cash Money.  He was an amazingly talented artist, who also had a knack for making albums with great covers, and as such, it’s a great tragedy that he was gunned down a few years back.

5) Mac- Shell Shocked

This was one of the first No Limit albums to be overtly shiny, though it still was released just before the company was able to afford their ridiculously bright covers that would be their trademark.  Also, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t like the symbolism of a bullet that seems to be Mac being shot through a window.  In time, if you stared at the case long enough, the bullet would no doubt hit you.

4) Mercedes- Rear End

First of all, no one can deny that this is one damn fine album cover.  Mercedes expertly plays with the double meaning of “rear end,” doing so with as much glee as Annie Dillard running through a field of grass.  See what I did right there?  I used a word with a double meaning myself.  Because “grass” can also mean weed.  And I’m pretty sure that Annie Dillard smokes her fair share of the weed.

Yet, there’s a second reason why Mercedes made this list.  I was a huge No Limit fan for at least three or four years.  For those of you who never owned a No Limit album, you should know that every such album would contain a “coming soon” insert, advertising the new projects coming down the pipeline.  From the earliest days, the impending arrival of Mercedes’ Rear End was heralded.  It was in every goddamn CD I bought during those three to four years, but to the best of my knowledge, the actual album NEVER FUCKING CAME OUT.  Come to think of it, quite a few of the albums advertised in those inserts never came out.  I was waiting with baited breath for Mean Green’s “West Coast Ballers Compilation,” TRU’s “Da Miller Boys,” The Down South Hustlers’ “Makin’ Moves Compilation,” and Tank Doggs’ “Beware of Da Doggs.”   I never did see any of those albums.

3) Silkk The Shocker- Charge It 2 Da Game

For a scholarly discussion of just how groundbreaking Silkk’s cover art was, please click here.  All I can really add to that is that I like how the name on his Ghetto Express card is Silkk the Shocker.  Something tells me that the DMV wouldn’t let you put that on your license.  Also I like how the background seems to indicate that he’s trying to buy some sort of archaic Greek statues with his Ghetto Express card (which I assume has a wildly exorbitant interest rate).

2) Master P- Da Last Don

This cover is almost the definition of gaudy.  The bizarrely vague background (is it a church?  The Sistine Chapel?) setting, the disinterested/vacant look on Master P’s face: it’s all the stuff of classics.  However, what makes this cover worthy of this high rank is Master P’s crazy, moving, 3-D hand.  As a boy, I did own a copy of the “limited edition” 3-D cover.  That’s how fucking cool I was at age 13.  So what if the CD cost almost $30 but only contained about 88 cents worth of music?  So what if I celebrated Master P’s line where he insults his rivals for “rapping for the motherfucking white folks,” when I was in fact what you might call “white folk?” Master P, and No Limit as a whole, endure the test of time because of their ability to embrace and ignore glaring contradictions.  I mean, Master P agreed to be on Dancing With The Stars, but refused to wear dancing shoes.  The man is nothing if not enigmatically contradictory.

1) Snoop Dogg- Da Game Is To Be Sold Not To Be Told

As if there was ever any doubt.  First of all, I should just make it clear that even I have no goddamn idea what the title of this album means.  Thankfully, that doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of this high art.  See if you can find these things in the picture:

- Huge castle named Snoop World (which he references in the song “Welcome To My World,” which includes the line “welcome to my world, nigga/where it’s VIP/and the bitches and the bud’s for free.”  I see Snoop World as being the equivalent of Scatman’s “Scatman’s World.”)

- Two cars

- Three dogs, one with a diamond encrusted muzzle

- A solid gold helicopter

- Some weird gold “thing” on the bottom of Snoop’s shoe

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