Puff Daddy Releases 'No Way Out' In 1997

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Boom Moment In Hip-Hop (1997)

It’s been one chaotic week to say the least for Puff Daddy. After his run in with his son’s football coach, the Bad Boy Reunion show at the BET Awards, and plummeting off stage during that same performance, it’s been an eventful ride.

On this date in 1997, he debuted his album No Way Out under Bad Boy Records. The album was slated to be titled, Hell Up In Harlem, but the album underwent several changes after the death of Biggie Smalls. The album was postponed in order to record several more emotional songs prior to its release.

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The album received mixed to positive reviews from music critics, who felt positive about the emotional aspect to the album, but were divided when it came to Puffy’s rapping and songwriting ability.

Despite all that, the album earned Puff Daddy five nominations at the 40^th Grammy Awards in 1998, and he won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

Puff Daddy described the album’s title as a reflection of how he was feeling, and there was “No Way Out” of the way things were after the death of B.I.G. The album garnered five commercially successful singles, the most being “I’ll Be Missing You,” a tribute track for B.I.G, featuring his widow Faith Evans.

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On Sept. 7, 2000, the album was certified septuple platinum, with sales of more than 7,000,000 copies in the United States. Other successful singles on the album include “Victory,” “Been Around the World,” “Pain,” and “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down.”