Puff Daddy's not the only hot shot CEO rising out of Bad Boy Entertainment. The lazy-tongued, triple-platinum rapper Mase is making entrepreneurial moves of his own. Mase recently launched a vanity label, All Out Records, under Atlanta hitmaker Jermaine Dupri's Sony-affiliated So So Def Recordings.

Why So So Def, and not Bad Boy, especially given the comparisons and friendly rivalry between Dupri and Puff Daddy, the man who first signed Mase as an artist? "Puffy never told me he wanted to give me a label deal," explains Mase. "He was busy working out a deal with [producer] Deric Angeletti." And although there were several labels courting Mase at the time, it was Dupri's camp that offered him the best deal. "Of all the talented young rappers and entertainers out there, Mase has the most star power," says So So Def's VP of Operations De'Andre "Free" Maiden, who brokered the deal. "He doesn't just make great records, he makes huge hits."

And those hits are what turned the heads of executives. Says Mase, "People started to recognize that Mase wrote 'Been Around the World,' Mase wrote 'Can't Nobody Hold Me Down,' and Mase wrote 'Mo Money Mo Problems.' That he's basically the guy putting the hits on the charts." [Mase has co-writing credits on all three tracks.]

Mase says it was Puffy who fueled his success and taught him the business, but that All Out is an opportunity to grow. "Puff is the teacher, Puff is like the father," says Mase, "But there comes a point where you got to let your son be a man."

Originally called Harlem World, Mase changed the label's name to All Out because of copyright issues, and also because he didn't want to appear exclusionary when signing acts from other regions. "I didn't want people to think I was closed-minded," says Mase, "so I went with my motto, All Out. It doesn't matter if you win or lose as long as you go all out."

All Out's first act, a rap group called Harlem World, will feature the twenty-year-old Mase himself as the frontman, along with his twin sister, Baby Stace, and five other rappers who are family members and close friends. The debut, Harlem World: The Movie, produced by such hitmaking luminaries as Puffy, Jermaine Dupri and Trackmasters, will be released in November. "I'm not really focused on selling millions of records," says Mase, "All I want people to do is recognize my work ethic, recognize that a young black man can run an efficient, professional company and [one] that won't be like ghetto style records." And if he heeds the advice of his mentors, that shouldn't be too hard to pull off.

TIARRA MUKHERJEE