On Tuesday, the Queens-raised rapper and producer Prodigy died, at the age of forty-two. The cause of his death has not been revealed, but Prodigy, who was born Albert Johnson, spent his life battling sickle-cell anemia. For many rap fans, the albums that he and his musical partner, Havoc, made in the mid-nineties, as the duo Mobb Deep, represented the platonic ideal of New York hip-hop: vivid storytelling and mystical slang, beats that somehow balanced a sinister griminess with an effervescent nostalgia for Johnson’s family’s old jazz and soul records.
He grew up in an accomplished household. His great-great grandfather founded Morehouse College, and his family was filled with pioneering jazz and soul musicians. As he recounted in his absorbing 2011 autobiography, “My Infamous Life,” it wasn’t unusual for stars like Diana Ross to drop by his childhood home. By his teens, however, he had chosen a different path for himself. He and Havoc, a friend from high school whose given name is Kejuan Muchita, began making music that was rugged, arrogant, and, above all, paranoid. The pain of chronic illness and the fear of never knowing when the next wave would come; the reckless binges of self-medication and his over-all devil-may-care life style: all of it contributed to the fatalism and desolation at the heart of Prodigy’s music.
It also explained why his music felt so forceful, so full of will. On songs like “Survival of the Fittest,” “Hell on Earth,” “Quiet Storm,” and, my personal favorite, “Right Back at You,” it seemed as though he had conquered fear—or at least transferred it to someone else. Mobb Deep’s second album, “The Infamous,” released in 1995, remains monumental. It features the duo’s greatest moment, “Shook Ones (Part II),” a spare, ominous street anthem that is built, improbably, out of old jazz records. Prodigy’s verse is murderously captivating, a dense block of text delivered with a seemingly effortless bravado: “Meanwhile, back in Queens, the realness and foundation / If I die, I couldn’t choose a better location / When the slugs penetrate, you feel a burnin’ sensation / Gettin’ closer to God in a tight situation / Now take these words home and think it through / Or the next rhyme I write might be about you.”
If you want to relive Prodigy’s greatest moments, some of New York’s biggest radio d.j.s have recorded tribute mixes: DJ Camilo’s was recorded live on Hot 97, while DJ Mister Cee, who’s seen it all, put together a more exhaustive one for his social-media followers. I also went back to a few older mixes that I’ve always loved. Last year, J-Rocc recorded a tribute mix shedding light on all the music that was sampled for “The Infamous.” The only CD that’s never left my car is a nineties-hip-hop mix that Funkmaster Flex did live on Hot 97 in 2007. It’s all worth listening to, but skip forty-six minutes in to hear Flex and some other d.j.s reminisce about Mobb Deep’s brief reign.
And if you want to glimpse another side of the man who once rapped of stabbing your brain with your nose bone, you can listen to him talk about fatherhood on a recent episode of the “Premium Pete” podcast. From the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2011, Prodigy served time for illegal possession of a firearm. He used this time to prioritize his health, exercising and learning how to cook. Upon his release, he seemed a new man. Prodigy talks about spending time with his daughter, taking her out on tour, cooking with her, earning her trust. “It’s tough, man. . . . My son want to do all kind of wild shit, like when I was young,” he says. You can hear the grit in his voice. “You gotta make better choices than me.”
