Handler Of Huge Flamethrowers: Remembering Prodigy of Mobb Deep
My first time hearing Prodigy of Mobb Deep fame was on their 1993 debut album, Juvenile Hell. Like much of the music of its time, there was this heavy emphasis on hard drums, impassioned rhyming, and an in-your-face attitude. I wasn’t in love with the record but the potential was most certainly there
These were the days in Hip-Hop when our eyes and ears weren’t besieged by an almost limitless flood of releases weekly. Things took time to get to the listener and it gave us opportunities to sit with the music. A year later in 1994, the somber “Shook Ones” promo single ushering in their Loud Records deal surfaced and marked the beginning of the New York duo’s new sound. It was cold, bleak, and perhaps a bit unnerving. In many respects, it became the perfect type of music to come out of New York at the time.
Mobb Deep’s music was made for headphones and brisk fall or winter treks across hardened urban backdrops. It felt menacing, dangerous, and depicted a harsh slice of reality for many living in or near an East Coast city center. Mobb Deep, like Wu-Tang Clan, Onyx, Redman, The Artifacts and countless others, helped shape a strong segment of Hip-Hop’s high period of the 1990s.
I was having as normal a Tuesday I would typically have, fielding writing assignments and trying to wrangle more despite my already packed schedule. When I’m in this space, there’s usually some music playing sans lyrics. That morning, randomly, I decided to play Durag Dynasty’s (Planet Asia, Killer Ben, Tristate) “Fish Meat” track which features some menacing bars from Prodigy. In Rapper P’s storied career, his later turn as a lyricist may have taken some dings but he still had one of the coldest deliveries to ever grace a track.
It was around 11:00 AM or so when I rocked the track on Spotify, but then I saw something that chilled me to the bone. The tag “#RIPPRODIGY” and declarations of love for half of the Mobb Deep duo began streaming across my timelines. I thought — hoped — it was another case of Twitter killing off someone before their time. Sadly, that didn’t come to bear as Prodigy’s death was confirmed.
Shortly after my editor tasked me to write a reaction piece about the loss, I was hit with a heavy wave of sadness. Of course, I wasn’t friends with the man born Albert Johnson, but I ran with him in many respects. Since the 90’s, Prodigy and Havoc as the Infamous Mobb Deep were part of what I call the “Hard Bar Brigade” of rappers that include the likes of the aforementioned Wu-Tang, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, M.O.P., KRS-One, and many others from the “Boom-Bap” era. Aside from someone with a strong West Coast bias, you’d be hard-pressed to find many listeners who flat out disliked Mobb Deep.
I never played favorites when it came to Hav and P because I always thought of Mobb as a singular entity. They both had their talents and they were absolute hook crafting masters. Yet, the edge might have always gone to P on the pen game despite one’s best protests otherwise.
This became clear with the advent of Prodigy’s solo outing, H.N.I.C. in 2000. The album’s lead single, “Keep It Thoro” still has one of the most potent opening lines in Hip-Hop history:
“I break bread, ribs, $100 dollar bills” — “Keep It Thoro”
Jean Grae, no doubt one of Hip-Hop’s strongest songwriters herself, made a statement on her Twitter feed that few should disagree with. Prodigy had some of the best opening lines in the game. There’s no arguing about the quality of “I got you stuck off the realness, we be the Infamous you heard of us” on any level.
P did something few MCs master in the span of their careers, which is bring the listener into his world with alarmingly tangible results. On the song “Extorition” featuring Method Man from the Mobb Deep’s Hell On Earth album, P writes, “I wave the Mobb Deep flag/You hear the sound as it slaps wins” — and I remember when I first heard the line, uttering the loudest “OH SH*T” one can muster because I actually saw that visual in my head. P’s pen might have been at its mightiest during this period, but was not the last he would display more of his prowess.
The title of this entry comes from the “H.N.I.C. Part 1 Freestyle” from the DJ Whoo Kid mixtape of the same name. It is perhaps my favorite performance from P in a career with several standout verses.
I don’t have the emotional energy at the moment to list all my favorites, but maybe I’ll return in time to share. But I do want you all to listen to this song [posted above] and absorb how Prodigy carries us through a scene that feels just as tense and agitated as he does while the song progresses to its bittersweet end.
Prodigy, while not tall in stature, was a giant and filled up a room while hardly saying a word. I met him a couple of years ago at an A3C event in Atlanta, minding my fanboy tendencies and keeping it cordial. I told him that I appreciated he and Havoc granting me an interview for the now-defunct RIME magazine, my first major print piece. He gave me the strongest pound ever and kept it moving with his folks and I later saw him rip down the stage in Old 4th Ward.
As a fan of Hip-Hop since the early 80s, I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing the loss of some of my favorite artists such as Heavy D, Phife of A Tribe Called Quest, Big L, and others. P’s death hit me especially hard because he always seemed so invincible. He was candid about his battle with sickle cell anemia, bravely rapping about his health condition on the track “You Can Never Feel My Pain.”
Wherever you are today and you claim to love Hip-Hop, pause for a moment to salute the infamous soldier Prodigy and be honored that you were able to witness street rhyming at its apex.
Rest Powerfully In Peace, Albert “Prodigy” Johnson. You words will live on infamously.
With All I Have,
D.L.
