You're listening to song exploder where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh, your way.

This episode contains explicit language.

The rappers Prodigy and Havoc met when they were still in high school in New York.

Havoc grew up in Queens, 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 Mob 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 it was released, 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 very best hip-hop albums ever made.

The biggest song from the album was Shook One's Part 2.

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 that he'd battled his entire life.

But the legacy of Mob Deep lives on. A new, expanded 25th anniversary edition of The Infamous just came out in April.

The shot locked down in turn guns, got willing hearts and straight up Shook One, Shook One.

He ain't a crook son. He just a shook one.

The story of Shook One's starts back in 1994. Here's Havoc.

My name is Havoc. One half of the infamous Mob Deep.

We had just secured the deal with the loud records, and it was like our second shot.

At life, as far as music career goes, because we had a deal with Island Forfeiter Proway, it didn't go so well.

And we got dropped from the label, so we had to go back to the drawing board.

But after the first record deal that didn't go so well, it inspired us.

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