Hiphopnotism

When you nod your head it causes movement in your cerebrospinal fluid, inducing a semi-hypnotic state that is very relaxing, and nodding your head to music seems to make you physically at one with the sounds. Some of the best music produces an almost involuntary motion that also leads to a increase in our endorphins - an addictive experience that we seek out when hearing something new. I'm kind of making up all that neuroscience as I go along, but there is probably a grain of truth behind it. A perfect example of this is the second album by Mobb Deep, The Infamous. Now 20 years old, this dark and dirty masterpiece keeps growing in stature, in no small part due to its unparalleled ability to hypnotize listeners.

The Mobb have released many good, and even great songs and albums since 1994 but The Infamous still reigns supreme. Part of the artistic success of The Infamous is down to the sheer sound of it: a warm, crackling murk of old jazz and soul records sliced open with thin, sharp drums and stitched together into haunting loops and sections. The mood is aggressive but with a scorched sorrow underneath it that is utterly compelling. While the rappers were obviously very young at the time, their flow has a naturalness that makes it like an elevated conversation among great storytellers. You can't help hanging on every word.

At this point, it seems likely that even Prodigy and Havoc, the duo that make up the Mobb, are aware of the exceptional nature of their landmark album, titling their new album The Infamous...Mobb Deep and putting a vintage photo on the cover. They've even gone so far as to package it with a second disc featuring outtakes and alternate cuts from the sessions that produced that earlier album. This can cut both ways: obviously, fans will want to hear the new old stuff, seeking another hit of that grimy goodness. On the other hand, the contrast between the archival material and the new tracks can make it hard to hear the latter on their own terms. The Infamous... is also their first album together in eight years and can be seen as a restart for the veterans, having weathered a beef that put them on hiatus for a while.

So, starting with the sonics, what are they giving us here? Overall, the album has a boxy, plastic sound with a spare, minimalist vibe. If a DJ weren't available, they could probably perform these songs using one of those old Sears organs with the built-in drum machine. This is not really a bad thing as Havoc, and the other producers they worked with weave some intriguing variations on this minimalist template.

The first song, Taking You Off Here, gets things off to a gritty start with barbed wire guitars, spooky organ, and a spliced in drum break. Prodigy and Havoc spit their tough talk with vigor but no standout lines. Say Something marries Vincent Price keyboards to that classic ticky-tack beat from Al Green's I'm Glad You're Mine, and has the rappers leaning into their verses. Prodigy especially mixes up his cadence to keep things interesting but the ultimate message is enumerated by Havoc: "Party after party, bitch, sticking to what got me rich."
Get Down has a funky hook from Prodigy and a guest spot from Snoop who sounds a bit less lazy than his other recent bars, while the lusher Timeless raises the tempo a little to explain that Mobb Deep is both timeless and priceless. "H (i.e. Havoc) the reason I'm dope now/I told him 'my brother I got this, we got this,'" Prodigy raps in a nice moment of brotherly love. In fact, they do sound like they're together on this album - you can imagine them trading verses on the same studio mic.

Like a lot late-career hip hop albums, most of the songs focus lyrically on how great they are, using violent or aspirational imagery to define their dominance. Most of time, this works OK as the energy is there and the beats are good. But this means when they turn their craft on another subject it stands out.

This is the case with Low, which is also the only song to feature a sung hook (a trend partially pioneered by Mobb Deep on Temperature's Rising) by Mack Wilds, a former cast member of The Wire now plying his trade in R'n'B. Prodigy and Havoc each take a verse to dissect love affairs gone wrong, one with his wife's best friend and the other with his best friend's widow. "Seems like a daytime soap or a movie on Lifetime/But, nah, this real life, it hurts," Prodigy raps, and they each add enough nuance and detail to put some meat on the familiar scenarios. As Havoc says, "It's more than just physical, 'cause mentally you stimulate me/And if I ain't up on it you just educate me." While there's still a thrill to the way they describe violent encounters, hearing them limn emotional ones provides a rush of a different kind.

Low falls in the middle of the album and the rest of the album reverts back to the braggadocio, with Legendary's upful attitude and a strong feature by Bun B making it the best of the lot. A few bonus tracks compile recent singles, including the gloriously moody Waterboarding and the rhythmically tricky Get It Forever.

The Infamous... is well above the fans-only cash grab it could have been but a couple of notches below a classic. While there's nothing here to tarnish the legacy, Prodigy's recent solo album Albert Einstein hits the heights more consistently.

Now, about that bonus disc...it consists of outtakes and alternate versions from the 1994 sessions that produced The Infamous, along with a couple short radio appearances from back then. The result? Instantaneous head nodding. It's got that murk, that insidious groove, that undeniable swing that made the earlier album so incredible. Mobb Deep were just on fire in the studio back then. So it's pure pleasure, more of the "raw, uncut" on which they built their rep. No doubt, Prodigy especially is technically a better rapper now, with a nimble pinpoint precision that has him toying with inflection and tempo line by line and sometimes word by word. But the younger Mobb had something really special - whether it was down to hunger or even a certain amateurism that breaks rules with impunity - something that still resonates today. It's like witnessing the forging of a mighty steel blade. There's heat, waste, and hard lessons learned, but the product is built to stand the tests of time and tribulation. Survival of the fittest - only the strong survive.

Infamy On 48th St. (Week of Legends, Pt. 2)

Top Left: 6th Borough | Top Right: Joe Budden | Bottom Left: Mobb Deep | Bottom Right: Prodigy

My affinity for the gritty urban noir of Mobb Deep has been previously explored so it should come as no surprise that when their 20th Anniversary tour rolled into NYC I made plans to be there. To pay proper homage to one of hip hop's longest running acts, I went all in with the VIP package, which included a meet and greet with members Prodigy and Havoc as well as copy of Prodigy's new novel, HNIC, and his first solo album. The venue was a new spot in midtown west, Stage 48, and an email from them instructed me to arrive at 6:00pm sharp. I had been at Wire's amazing show the night before but had no lack of energy when the time came around to leave work and head downtown.

Live hip hop has a bit of a bad reputation - shows start late, crowds get rowdy, there are too many acts. Also, there's the fact that the music is usually recorded and there is little room for surprises or improvisation. Unlike seeing a band like Wire or Fleet Foxes where part of the thrill is teasing out just how they make their music, seeing a rap concert is almost entirely about the collective experience and the electricity of sharing space with your heroes. The Mobb Deep show entirely lived up to all those aspects, the good and the bad, starting with that "6:00pm sharp."

Dinner was a bag of trail mix, which I enjoyed while observing the others who had followed instructions, lining up in the blistering heat outside the club. The main demographic was smokers - tobacco users of all races and both genders, all younger than me. Everybody was relaxed and I was soon chatting with two guys from Queens and a man who had moved here from Medellin, Colombia, six months ago and had grown up listening to the Mobb ("They are quite underground in my country," he told us). He was living the dream, but had never been to a concert like this and didn't speak much English so I decided to keep an eye out for him.

Eventually, we were admitted to the place, patted down, and instructed to go upstairs. The decor was as expected, with neon-lined steps, low seating, etc. No sign of the stars, but I was just just happy to be in the frigid air with a drink in my hand. I chatted with my friends from outside - they called me "token old guy" and were continually surprised by the fact that I knew what the hell I was talking about, which became a theme of the night. It caused me to wonder if many of those of us present at the birth of hip hop have given it up, at least in public.

A line gradually formed opposite a table with two chairs so I stuck with the Colombian who showed me his shaking hands. The was a bit of a flurry as Prodigy and Havoc entered and took their seats. They seemed in a good mood, bantering with each other and showing no sign of the beef that made headlines last year. We had been instructed to ask for only one signature and only pose for one picture and the line moved smoothly. The Colombian was ahead of me and he came away walking on air after his photo op. Then I stepped up to the table, shook their hands and they each signed something for me before we stood for the picture, which was taken by one of their posse. Prodigy had been making a pointing gesture in the photos I observed, so it was a while before I noticed he was making quite a different gesture in my picture. I patted each guy on the back, told them they were great, they thanked me, I thanked them and then stepped away.

AnEarful meets The Mobb

The Colombian was still in heaven when I caught up to him. It turned out that he had neglected to take a copy of the H.N.I.C. CD so I gave him mine - I've had that classic for a while now. And then...we waited. The DJ was great and the sound system excellent so it was fairly painless until the lights went down around 8:00pm and H2-O took the stage. He's a positive-minded rapper of some skill but nothing spectacular. I was hoping Joe Budden, the advertised opener, was up next but no such luck. Ninety minutes later, I was putting out an open call on Twitter for Sandman Sims to come down from the Apollo with his hook. This was strictly amateur hour - there was even a (not bad) breakdancing crew - and the crowd's restive booing and chanting for Mobb Deep grew louder than the performers at times.

One bright spot among the parade of rappers was the duo 6th Borough, who had real songs, real skill and real stage presence. They were followed by Status, who started strong but lost the crowd after a couple of songs. It was hard to figure out why, but he was done. I would have gladly had Status come back over the mangy crew that next took the stage. Whoever they were, the crowd drubbed them off the stage in fairly short order, making way for Joe Budden at around 11:00pm. He's a strange case. Ten years ago, his big single, the Kool & The Gang-fueled Pump It Up, and subsequent debut album put New York at his feet. But it would be a few years before more music, and much of it was forgettable or guest-heavy, like the albums he made as a member of Slaughterhouse, the "supergroup" he put together in 2009. Yet another dude who wanted to know what this "token old guy" was doing at a Mobb Deep show told me Budden is widely considered the least skilled of that crew.

In any case, he was greeted warmly and was an affable presence, if a little indifferent to his surroundings. Budden can't seem to decide if he is a comic rapper or a tough one, turning in a perfunctory set that just seemed to peter out after Pump It Up, which still got the hands in the air. In any case, by that point I would have booed the second coming off the stage, and the crowd would have joined me. Fortunately, no more booing was necessary: the tense opening notes of Survival Of The Fittest were heard, the crowd exploded, and suddenly Mobb Deep was on stage, both Prodigy and Havoc spitting their verses with energy and authority.

This is why we came, I thought, this is why we stayed and slogged through three and a half hours of opening acts. Their beats, whether produced by Havoc, Alchemist or others, are some of the best ever and they sounded extraordinary on Stage 48's system. And while their first album is often considered their best, they rolled out song after song from across their catalog with each one garnering huge reactions from the audience. It was a well-earned greatest hits set featuring bangers like Quiet Storm, Put Em In Their Place, Have A Party, and Shook Ones Pt. II. Prodigy and Havoc performed a song each from their recent solo albums, with the former's Give Em Hell fitting in perfectly.

Both rappers have distinctive performing styles. Havoc is all business, head down, unleashing his rhymes with precision and passion. Prodigy is more animated, acting out nearly every line with nuanced and creative movements. Throughout the concert, he seemed to be hanging on every word, mouthing Havoc's bars even when he was performing his solo track. Prodigy is a riveting presence and I hope to see him in the fall when he tours with Alchemist.

As the show progressed, the sense of barely controlled chaos continued to grow, and the stage continued to fill up with more and more hangers on. They seemed to appear out of nowhere, adding to the celebratory feel. At one point Prodigy invited an audience member to climb up and film a song. She stayed for the rest of the concert, a stand-in for all of us fans. Though there is a promise of new music from them later this year, everything they've done so far has cemented them in the firmament of hip hop and New York history and the concert was both a consolidation of that achievement and a reminder of their deathless vitality.

Prodigy at Powerhouse Arena

And what of Prodigy's book, HNIC: An Infamous Novel (written with Steven Savile)? I have long thought that the universe of Mobb Deep could be expanded to include longer forms of storytelling, so I was ready for it. The short novel, the first in a series, grew out of an unproduced screenplay Prodigy wrote to accompany the H.N.I.C. album. He reached out to Savile, a well-known author of fiction of all stripes, to help him shape it into a book. At an interview with Sacha Jenkins at Powerhouse Arena about a week after the concert, Prodigy freely dispensed credit to Savile for some of the choicest lines in the book but took pride is telling a story that used characters and experiences from his past.

HNIC is a quick read and has some familiar crime literature tropes - a gangster's last job before going straight - but some new twists and turns. While I haven't kept up with the literature being sold by the average incense vendor, I did matriculate at the school Black Experience fiction, with a major in Donald Goines and a minor in Iceberg Slim. Like their work, once HNIC begins the narrative engine pulls you along like the A train between 59th and 125 - and you might find yourself missing a stop or to to find out what happens next.

The main difference is in the perspective. With Goines and Slim, there is a sense of being down in the street with their characters throughout, while Prodigy has an increased distance, a view from above. His main characters, Pappy, Black and Tonya, are playing out an old story of love, loyalty and betrayal and Prodigy's POV links them to the archetypes behind those themes. In the course of the story, he and Savile drop enough breadcrumbs to past and future plots that they should have no trouble creating sequels. The only thing they should watch out for are the Britishisms that slipped in to the text (Savile is English). I doubt anyone from Queens as gotten dinner from the "takeaway" and brought it to their "bedsit" while worrying about ill-gotten gains stored in a "holdall" - but that's a minor detail. If there is an HNIC book-of-the-month club, sign me up!

The bonus beat to the whole week was having the opportunity to be introduced to Prodigy by Sacha Jenkins before their interview. I found him to be a very relatable guy, well-aware of his stature as a million-selling artist, but open and humble to new experiences and people. Here's to another 20 years of his dark urban tales and killer beats.

Mobb Deep: 20 Years Of Infamy

I didn't listen to much hip hop in the mid-to-late 90's (too busy listening to Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack - all indebted to hip hop) so the Infamous Mobb passed me by on the first go round. In the end, it was a mistake that led me to them. After seeing the compulsively watchable 8 Mile starring Eminem, I decided to order the soundtrack from the BMG Club (a relic of the CD Era). Must've filled in the wrong number, though, because I ended up with More Music From 8 Mile, a supplementary disc featuring some of the older songs used in the movie. Rather than send it back, I gave it a listen. Most of it was very good but I was magnetically attracted by two cuts that had grimy, distorted beats and rappers who sounded like real New Yorkers: Prodigy and Havoc, the duo that is Mobb Deep.

When I caught the line "Rock you in your face/Stab your brain with your nosebone," I knew I needed more. I delved in and found a whole cosmology. Welcome to the 41st Side of QB - 41st St. in Queensbridge - where the wolves shoot out the streetlights, deal crack and put an ice pick in your neck: a film noir setting where the streets are always wet - rain and blood - and thugs are always scheming. I grew up in 70's NYC but P and Hav were BORN into that mess, the Ford To City: Drop Dead era, and the soundtrack they provide is perfect for walking the sidewalks of the Rotten Apple.

Hip Hop fans are some of the toughest critics and there's a constant debate about when or if Mobb Deep fell off and if or when they ever got back on top. In a 20 year career, ups and downs are to be expected but I find good stuff on most of their albums. If you add in Prodigy's best solo albums (H.N.I.C. And Return Of The Mac), their catalog adds up to one of the major discographies in rap music. After a tentative debut, Juvenile Hell, they made The Infamous in 1995 and it is one of the true classics of the genre. The line quoted above comes from Shook Ones Pt. II, a mission-statement of a track with sharp beats underscoring a crackly haze of synth strings, piano and rich bass. The rhymes are artful but put you right in it: "When the slugs penetrate you feel a burning sensation/getting closer to God in a tight situation." Donald Goines would have lined up at The Tunnel to catch a piece of this.

If anything, the next album, Hell On Earth, brought the Mobb's game up. More Trife Life is pure storytelling, a Raymond Chandler tale of getting caught up in the worst way ("She said don't sweat it he don't got the top lock"), told over a frightful combination of dubbed out bass'n'snare, synth and something creaking. Overall, the beats are even tighter and the rhymes are spiced with more self-reflection. Havoc is their secret weapon behind the boards, a deeply musical in-house producer whose beats are often the best on their albums. This was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt by Murda Muzik, which contained Quiet Storm, one of Hav's most inspired creations. Haunting strings, glassy piano, dead simple drums and a pulse provided by a complete re-contextualization of the iconic White Lines bassline forge not so much a song but a whole environment. The chorus is a statement of purpose: "Cause it's the real shit, shit to make'em feel shit" and at their best Mobb Deep always delivers on it. Prodigy's H.N.I.C., with classic single Keep It Thoro, followed quickly and they seemed unstoppable.

Infamy from 2002 changed things up with it's second single, Hey Love (Anything), which featured the smooth R'n'B stylings of 112. Some fans complained but the song was a hit and helped set the template for the rap songs with sung hooks that dominated the radio over the next few years. Prodigy's sickle cell disease was flaring up at the time and he sometimes sounds subdued on Infamy and its follow-up, Amerikaz Nightmare, their weakest album. The biggest let down was the production, which often sounds plastic and doesn't blend well with their voices. Even the song titles (one is called Real Niggaz, another Real Gangstaz) hint that they were feeling played out. Throw Your Hands (In The Air), with assists from Talib Kweli and Kanye West is a solid cut, however.

In 2005 they signed with Queens compatriot 50 Cent's G-Unit label and put out Blood Money, which found little love but to my ears was nearly a return to form. Put'Em In Their Place has a swagger straight out of the Studebaker era and Prodigy sounds healthy and hungry: "Yo, I was schooled by the hood, raised by the wolves/Trained by the pain, adopted by guerillas." Unfortunately, one of the best beats was wasted on the fairly reprehensible Backstage Pass - I can't make any excuses for a lyric about recognizing a groupie from behind. Not really what we signed up for back in 96. But Creep sported an inventive groove and, like the organ-driven Pearly Gates, featured the best verses from Fiddy since Get Rich Or Die Trying. Strangely enough, Prodigy's lyric on Pearly Gates "Tell the Boss Man we got beef/And tell his only son I'm a see him when I see him," and "We don't give a fuck about that religious bullshit" proved more controversial than his own frankly misogynistic bullshit. Go figure.

Prodigy's Return Of The Mac came in 2007. This full-album collaboration with producer Alchemist featured almost no guests and narrowed the lyrical focus to straight up New York noir. It's one of the best hip hop albums of the 2000's and the future looked rosy at the time. Chaos, never far from the Mobb Deep circle, soon intruded, however, and Prodigy went to jail for three years on a weapons charge. While momentum has been somewhat hard to regain since his release, a number of strong singles and EP's (The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP, Waterboarding/Street Lights, and Black Cocaine) helped get Prodigy and Mobb Deep back into the game. The Bumpy Johnson EP, expanded into an album, was especially good. Stronger, featuring a devastating Nina Simone sample, was a love song to NYC and celebrated Prodigy's triumph over many forms of adversity. Definitely worth the download.

Prodigy drops Albert Einstein, another collaboration with Alchemist, on June 11 and, after a distracting Twitter beef between Prodigy and Havoc in 2012, they reconciled and began work on their first album since 2006. They're also going out on a 20th Anniversary Tour, which touches down in New York on June 20th and July 17th. Even with all the vicissitudes of Mobb Deep's career, they are a New York City legend and I'm not passing up the chance to see them in July. Hell, I even signed up for the meet and greet! So here's your assignment: what would you ask Prodigy and Havoc if you had a moment with them? Leave your ideas in the comments and I'll be sure to report back after the show.

A Few Brief Words About Some Recent Hip Hop

1. Black Cocaine The other day I got an email from Havoc, otherwise known as Kejuan Muchita, otherwise known as one half of the legendary hip hop duo Mobb Deep. The email let me know of the release of a new EP called Black Cocaine. This was good news, as I am a fan. Upon my arrival home, I downloaded the EP. Did I listen to a 30 second sample? No. Did I go on Amazon or iTunes and see how many stars people were giving it? No. Did I check out the hip hop bloggerati to see what the pundits were saying? No. Did I engage in a spirited discussion with some fool who thinks Prodigy (Havoc's partner) lost it 10 years ago? No. I simply downloaded it. After all, it's by Mobb Deep and it's called Black Cocaine. There are few guarantees in this life but that's one of them. If it's by Mobb Deep and it's called Black Cocaine, it will be good. And it is good - very, very good. So go buy it. If you must sample a song, watch this gruesome video. You'll wish you had just bought the EP.

2. Pusha T Otherwise known as Terrance Thornton, Pusha is one half of the not quite legendary but still astounding hip hop duo Clipse, known for some of the finest hip hop albums of the new millennium. After recording some staggering verses with Kanye West as part of the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy project, the next logical step for Pusha was a solo album which, in the style of the day, was heralded by a free mix tape over the summer called Fear Of God. Unfortunately, except for the hypnotic Raid, which featured 50 Cent's best work since Blood Money with Mobb Deep, the collection was a stiff. Rote beats, unimaginative hooks, and just a few of Pusha's patented "young black Socrates" zingers. So when RCRD LBL let me know of a new track called Body Work from Fear Of God 2, my hopes were not high. And it turned out to be lame. But somehow in the aftermath of my earlier disappointment, I had missed the September release of a track by him pithily entitled Don't Fuck With Me, which I now discovered. 

Just seeing the title reminded me of the time when a contemporary novelist expressed her frustration with the fact that Anthony Trollope had written a novel called The Way We Live Now - in 1875. "Shouldn't every novel be called that?" she asked. Well, shouldn't (nearly) every rap song be called Don't Fuck With Me? But it took Pusha to do it and it's pure genius. Download it for free from RCRD LBL - and sign up for their excellent emails while you're at it. Sometimes one great song can make up for a lot of duds. 

Time to get cracking on that Best of 11 list...cheers.