Following the release of ‘The Infamous’, Mobb Deep became some of the most prolific artists of the East. Mobb Deep catapulted to the top of the hardcore hip hop scene through Havoc and Prodigy’s straightforward narration of street life. As Tom Power noted on today's show, Lin-Manuel Miranda recognized the power of the lyric and used it as a narrative device in his Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton. Initially the line is deployed to convey Hamilton's prodigious intelligence and desire but it takes on a different, tragic meaning when it is fatally invoked by Hamilton's son Philip on "Blow us all Away. The group saw its first major success with their second album, ‘The Infamous’, released in 1995. The phrase "I'm only 19/ but my mind is older" seems simple on paper, but in the context of world weariness, mistrust and malevolence in which it is delivered, the line's significance is jarring. Because of the song's minimalist construction, there's particular focus and scrutiny on the lyrics and here, Prodigy's arresting mindstate comes to the fore. Bereft of a chorus, but laced with the unbelievably long run-on sentences that would function as the hooks, this song set the template for Mobb Deep's peak mid-to-late '90s period. Played on today's (June 21) episode of q in tribute to Prodigy, "Shook Ones Part II" is Mobb Deep's most famous song - significant because of song's unorthodox nature. Here are three songs that display these aspects of Prodigy's artistry. He was blessed with a penchant for inventing words and adding them to the lexicon, a cinematic eye for narrative and the gift to infuse simple phrases with weighty significance. Prodigy distinguished himself as a hip-hop lyricist with a cold, matter-of-fact delivery that was unnerving, menacing and utterly uncompromising. Mobb Deep's 1995 album The Infamous is regarded as one of the finest - and hardest - records to emerge from that decade. The exact cause of his death has not been confirmed, but the artist had been battling sickle cell anemia since birth and his publicist revealed his death was connected to complications related to that disease.īoth as a solo artist and with his Mobb Deep partner Havoc, Prodigy was a highly influential figure in East Coast hip-hop. Along with artists like frequent collaborator and friend Nas, Prodigy was a pivotal figure in the cadre of MCs who hailed from the Queens borough of New York in the mid 1990s. He had been hospitalized for the past few days after a performance in Las Vegas. Hip-hop artist Prodigy of Mobb Deep passed away yesterday (June 20) at the age of 42.
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