Mobb Deep - Shook Ones, Pt. II

Song Exploder

Hrishikesh Hirway

Music

4.8 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The rappers Prodigy and Havoc met when they were still in high school in New York. Havoc grew up in Queensbridge, the biggest public housing projects in the country, and as a teenager, Prodigy lived there for a while, too. The two of them formed Mobb Deep in 1991.

In 1995, they put out their second album, The Infamous. It was a success when it came out, but in the 25 years since then, the influence of the album has only grown. Complex named it one of the 10 best rap albums of the 90s, and Pitchfork gave the album a rare perfect score, 10 out of 10. The Washington Post called it a “masterpiece” of hardcore rap, and in Slate, it was called one of the best albums of the ‘90s, and one of the best hip-hop albums ever made.

Their biggest song from the album was “Shook Ones, Pt. II.” Havoc made the now-legendary beat that he and Prodigy rap over. To celebrate the 25th anniversary, Havoc told me the story of how the whole song came together. Prodigy passed away in 2017, from complications due to sickle-cell anemia, a debilitating disease he’d battled his entire life. But the legacy of Mobb Deep lives on. A new, expanded, 25th anniversary edition of The Infamous just came out in April.

songexploder.net/mobb-deep

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.
0:06.7	I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe.
0:10.6	On September 5th, I'm going to be doing a special live Song Exploder event in Los Angeles with Boni Vair.
0:16.9	Justin Vernon and producer Jimmy Stack are going to be joining me on stage to tell the story behind one of the songs from the new Bonie Verre album, Sable Fable. So if you've ever wondered what a full, unedited Song Exploder conversation is like, this is your chance to be in the room. This is going to be a live event only. It's not going to be live streamed or repeated on any other night, so I hope you can make it. It's going to be at the beautiful Palace Theater in downtown L.A.
0:40.7	You can get tickets to this special Song Exploder Live event with Bonnie Vair at
0:45.4	songexploder.net slash live. Again, it's on Friday, September 5th in downtown L.A.
0:51.8	And you can get tickets at Song songexploder.net slash live.
0:56.8	This episode contains explicit language.
1:02.1	The rapper's Prodigy and Havoc met when they were still in high school in New York.
1:06.7	Havoc grew up in Queens, in Queensbridge, the biggest public housing projects in the country.
1:13.6	And as a teenager, Prodigy lived there for a while too. The two of them formed Mob Deep in 1991.
1:16.6	In 1995, they put out their second album, The Infamous.
1:20.6	It was a success when it came out, but in the 25 years since it was released, the influence of the album has only grown.
1:26.6	Complex named it one of the 10 best rap albums of the 90s, and pitchfork gave the album
1:31.3	a rare perfect score, 10 out of 10.
1:33.9	The Washington Post called it a masterpiece of hardcore rap, and in Slate it was called
1:38.0	one of the best albums of the 90s and one of the very best hip-hop albums ever made.
1:42.8	The biggest song from the album was Shook On's Part 2.
1:46.4	Havocke made the now legendary beat that he and Prodigy rap over.
1:50.1	To celebrate the 25th anniversary, Havocke told me the story of how the whole song came together.
1:55.7	Prodigy passed away in 2017 from complications due to sickle cell anemia, a debilitating disease that he'd battled his entire life.
2:02.6	But the legacy of Mob Deep lives on.
	...

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