Rap mogul Master P took over New Orleans with the screening of his new motion picture I Got the Hookup 2 during Essence Music Fest.
The man born Percy Miller, 49, sat down with “The Breakfast Club,” and the No Limit founder explained why he was so proud of this project. Among other reasons, he expressed joy at having created the film starring his son and owning the production of the film (I Got the Hookup 2).
Master P then contrasted the film project with the superhero blockbuster Black Panther, which broke records, made hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide and featured a blizzard of black people. But since Blacks don’t own anything regarding Black Panther, he says the community did not reap any benefits from it.
“You got to realize why it’s so important,” said Master P. “When we do a project like Black Panther, we didn’t benefit off that man … Like Black people [were] in the movie, and we were happy and excited, but it wasn’t us.
“You see us on all these big films and big productions, but the real money is in the production. They really don’t want us to own the production. They want us to be in front of the camera.”
Master P went on to explain that only five percent of production is own by African Americans.
“We did this for the budget … and we did it for millions of dollars, but imagine if we had hundreds of millions of dollars to make a project? How would it look?” Master P continued. “This is the growth. That is why this is important because we’re coming back into the community, putting money back into the community. But it’s a process. We got to grow with this. Just like I did with music.”
Master P spoke about Black movie ownership in a post on Instagram, where he talked about how his new movie could become “the biggest ever.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoUPWbiFwTX/?utm_source=ig_embed
“I showed y’all a couple of trailers and y’all said ‘Oh, this can’t be bigger than Black Panther,’ why not?” he asked. “And if it’s close to Black Panther it’s successful. We didn’t create Black Panther. We definitely didn’t own Black Panther.”
Check out Master P’s interview on “The Breakfast Club” below:
