Remembering Craig Mack On The 30th Anniversary Of ‘Project: Funk Da World’

30 years ago, the Bad Boy revolution began when Hip-Hop producer/budding record mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs released two albums from two East Coast rappers. But while people know the history of one of them quite well, we’re here to talk about the other guy.

Project: Funk da World, the debut album from Bronx MC Craig Mack, dropped a week after Ready to Die, the debut from Brooklyn’s The Notorious B.I.G. (better known as Biggie Smalls). Combs paired these two as the first rising stars of his new label, Bad Boy Records. He famously launched a promotional campaign that included a B.I.G. Mack cassette sampler, with Biggie’s tunes on one side and Mack’s tunes on the other. (The sampler was re-released by Bad Boy on vinyl in 2019, for a limited Record Store Day release.) 

Any rap fan who lived during that time remembers how BIggie and Mack were presented as Combs’ twin terrors. BIggie came with the pimpalicious, hardcore gangsta rap on Die, dropping the ‘80s R&B-sampling hits “Juicy” and “Big Poppa.” But Mack – freckled face, baby afro, rocking an unlimited supply of hockey jerseys – was an old-school verbal bruiser, coming up with wild-and-crazy rhyme schemes to all those MCs who dare step to him. You can hear the flow he brought on “Get Down”:

“My style was definite to take ya over

Have ya sittin’ lookin’ over in a four-door Chevy Nova (why I oughta)

I figure it’s a slaughter

In the world of dollars, ya shit ain’t nothing but a quarter”

Working primarily with veteran Hip-Hop producer Easy Mo Bee, Funk da World is 49 minutes of Mack staking his claim as Hip-Hop’s mightiest new voice. And, for about a minute back in ‘94, he was. I still remember going to some college event and seeing brothas enthusiastically singing his first single “Flava In Ya Ear.” Indeed, “Flava” was Mack’s calling card, a rambunctious declaration that, as Mack says in the song, there’s a “brand new sheriff that’s in town.”

“Flava” went platinum and later garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1995. As par for the course at the time, the song was eventually remixed, with Biggie, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J and Rampage contributing verses, and given a Hype WIlliams-directed music video. Mo Bee has said that he was incensed that Combs and longtime producing partner Chucky Thompson was credited alongside him.  “I kinda flipped out because [Puffy] didn’t do anything on the record,” Mo Bee said in a recent interview with The Sample Lounge, “and Chucky Thompson kinda sat there and watched me do the remix in Sound On Sound Studio.”

Just like “Flava,” all the songs on Project consist of Mack declaring his verbal power over funky sample loops and breakbeats. Unlike his labelmate Biggie, who spent most of Die letting listeners know he is, was, and will always be up to no good, the Christian-raised Mack used his rhymes for good. This is most exemplified in the album’s penultimate track “When God Comes.”

“And radio needs to be ashamed

For pumping murder, murder, murder all up in our brain

I’ll tell ya now Big Poppa don’t like it

Representing truth when the Mack starts to mike it

I hope the subject don’t turn ya away

But the whole Hip-Hop generation need to pray”

Mack referring to God as “Big Poppa” must’ve marked the beginning of the animosity between Mack and Biggie, who publicly said he didn’t “f**k with” Mack. After all, he did drop a song called “Big Poppa” where he said “I got more mack than Craig.” 

Mack’s determination to be his own man on the mic led to tension between him and Combs, who wanted to get his God on and mold Mack in his own image. Even though Project became a gold-selling hit, peaking at number eight on the Billboard Top Rap/Hip-Hop Albums chart, Combs was focusing his attention more on Biggie and himself. By 1996, Mack filed for bankruptcy and was eager to jump ship. He even held meetings with Death Row Records to be the newest star on its proposed Death Row East label. This further enraged Combs, who was already embroiled in a much-publicized beef with Death Row head Suge Knight that led to the deaths of their star artists, former friends Biggie and Tupac Shakur.

Eventually, Mack and Combs parted ways, citing “creative differences” – that ol’ chestnut – as the reason. Mack did release a second album, 1997’s Operation: Get Down, on another label. Although it got some OK reviews (“a cocky declaration of independence,” one young-ass critic wrote), it was nowhere near as successful as Project. 

After several false starts at making a comeback, Mack spent his later years away from the rap world. In the last decade, he lived in a South Carolina-based, Christian commune that’s been described as a cult. In 2018, he passed away at age 47 from what was originally reported as congestive heart disease. But a recent, divisive Rolling Stone piece claims that he died from HIV/AIDS.  

You could say Mack was the first of many Bad Boy artists who eventually got the shaft from Combs. (He also wasn’t the first Bad Boy artist to pass away too soon; along with him and Biggie, “Whoa!” rapper Black Rob died of cardiac arrest in 2021.) The label’s history is littered with performers whom Puffy/Puff/Diddy/Love exploited and discarded. It’s a shame Mack didn’t live to see the year Combs has been having, with the myriad sexual assault/trafficking allegations, the lawsuits, FBI raids on his homes, “no Diddy” becoming the new “pause,” etc.

I can’t help but get the feeling that Mack is somewhere watching all of this, feeling vindicated and rejoicing at the fact that the man who both launched and crushed his career most likely – as Mack would say – won’t be around next year.

Stream ‘Project: Funk da World’ Album: Apple Music | Tidal | YouTube