Puffy and Mase Detail The Making of 'Can't Nobody Hold Me Down'

I can never forget this song. The day after I played the role of the bestman at my cousin's wedding two years ago, we drove around with this song on repeat, drinking a bottle of Hennessy. This was one of those songs that made me fall in-love with that Mase and Puffy combo when I was a teenager. Hell, even my Dad, in his fifties at the time would always bump the song in his Benz 200. The song was so different and futuristic for that time (mid 90s). In a recent Complex TV special, attention was put on the song (Can't Nobody Hold Me Down; off Puffy's No Way Out album), and they got Mase and Puff Daddy to talk on how the song came about. By the way, the song was sampled from a Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five's track titled The Message.

Below is what Puff said about the song.

“I knew I liked the record. I knew I had produced a lot of hit records, but I didn’t have nothing with my voice on it. So, in the grand scheme of things it was the experiment that turned into a legendary formula...It was one of my favorite songs growing up, but I felt like I could put like a twist on it,” he added, while speaking on Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five's "The Message.” “I felt like it was a sample because of the tempo and the speed of it. It wasn’t really played in the clubs a lot. And it wasn’t really something that—It was something that everybody knew. There was an opportunity to put a new flip on it…And this was during the time of course when sampling—when everybody was sampling and looking for the hottest sample.”





And below is what Mase had to say about the making of the song.







“That record was Ice Cube’s record. So, when I heard it I was thinking ‘What are we doing? This is Ice Cube beat.’ And at that point we had already had beef with the West Coast. So, I was thinking ‘Why are we doing this beat again? This is not gon’ be good’…It took me literally like two weeks to figure out exactly what he wanted. Like I would hit it here and there and then I would tell him certain things. He would go ‘No, that’s not it.’ He said ‘Let me see where you’re going with it.’ And the first line he’d be like ‘No, that’s not it.’ And I would think ‘You didn’t hear the rest of it.’ He’s like ‘I heard the first line.’ I was like ‘You didn’t hear the next bar. The next bar is crazy.’ He was like ‘But you’re setting it up. Instead of just coming out with it.’ So, I would write a dope verse and think it’s for me. And he was like ‘No, I wanna say the verse you were gonna say for you.’ And then at that point I realized working with him I’m gonna have to go over the top cause the verse I think’s for me may be his verse.”




Hahaha! Mase was doing double work...writing for himself and then for Puffy. Loon took over that job after Mase left the rap scene. And a couple of rappers took over after Loon left Bad Boy Records.