Prodigy of Mobb Deep

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2024

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Prodigy formed Mobb Deep alongside his partner Havoc when they were teens. Together the duo basically started gangster rap for the East Coast. When he joined the show back in 2011, Prodigy had just written a biography called My Infamous Life. He talked with us about the book and also his lifelong battle with sickle cell anemia. In 2017, he was hospitalized for his anemia and died while in care. Late last year, the FDA approved a new therapy to treat and almost eliminate symptoms of sickle cell disease. Had it been available to Prodigy when he was alive, there's a good chance he'd still be here today.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from the Walton Family Foundation,
0:05.1	working to create access to opportunity for people and communities by tackling tough social and environmental problems.
0:12.0	More information is at waltonfamilyfoundation.org.
0:17.1	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of Maximum Fun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:23.6	It's Bolzai. I'm Jesse Thorne. My guest Prodigy is one of the fathers of hardcore hip-hop.
0:42.8	As a teenager in the early 90s, he and his partner Havoc found an East Coast answer to the emerging
0:48.5	West Coast gangster sound. As Mobb Deep, their tone was dark, eerie, and minimal, and their lyrics were cold and brutal.
0:57.1	They didn't yell because they didn't need to.
1:00.1	Their words spoke for themselves.
1:02.9	Let's take a listen to Prodigy's opening verse from Shook Ones Part 2.
1:07.1	It is the epical single from their epical record, The Infamous.
1:11.8	When Prodigy recorded it, he was barely out of his teens.
1:14.9	I got you stuck off the realness.
1:17.3	We be the infamous you heard of us.
1:19.2	Official Queensbridge murderers.
1:20.8	Tomorrow comes equipped for warfare.
1:22.7	Beware of my crime family who got enough shots to share for all those.
1:26.8	Who want a profile and pose?
1:28.6	Rock you in your face, brain with your nosebone.
1:31.3	You all alone in these streets, cousin.
1:33.3	Every man for their self in his land.
1:35.3	Prodigy spent his life struggling with sickle cell anemia.
	...

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