Mase sampling Welcome Back, Kotter was very odd. It didn’t make much sense in 2004 and still doesn’t today. The rapper retired in 1999 and had basically disappeared from the public. And then, all of a sudden, he was back with a single that sampled a theme song from a sitcom canceled 25 years earlier. Pardon?
As odd as all of that was, things got even more confusing when the music video dropped. Mase samples Welcome Back, Kotter for the song but the video opened with a Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood parody and then switched over to summertime in New York before some other random things happened.
Why not just base the music video on the TV show? Even if people weren’t familiar with Mr. Kotter, a premise of Mase in a classroom reminding kids of who he was would have still been entertaining. Instead, he just decided to put out some halfhearted crap.
Also, what’s the deal with the scene of Mase in Los Angeles receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? The song is literally talking about how he was gone for years and is now making a return. It defies logic that a person loudly announcing a comeback would simultaneously receive a star.
And like every mid-2000s rap music video, Welcome Back was obliged to have an old, white woman dancing for no reason in particular.
Related: Remembering Yung Joc and the motorcycle dance
Song: Welcome Back
Artist: Mase
Year: 2004
Quote it:
I’m just a bad boy gone clean
I’m the diamond chain choker, always remain sober
Don’t drink liquor and all the games over
Best Video Moment: P. Diddy as Walter Lee Younger reporting from Times Square
New Mase was really annoying
No one in 2004 was dying for a Mase comeback. I mean most people liked him, but it’s not like he was an all-time MC. For most people, he was a dude who put out a couple of good songs. Listening to Welcome Back made many of us yearn for the days of his retirement.
The lyrics on offer here are just annoying. Mase is constantly reminding us of his newfound straight-edge lifestyle. But no one listens to rap music for that. Hell, as someone who has never been drunk or done drugs in his life, I can relate to the clean life more than a lot of other people.
And even I don’t want to hear about that kind of stuff when I’m listening to hip hop. It may also explain why most people still only remember Mase from his late 1990s, Bad Boy days. Regardless, Welcome Back was nothing more than a confusing music video that was part of an ill-convinced comeback.
See More: Rap Music Video Reviews from The Touchback
