Give Up The Goods (Just Step) – Q-Tip (credited in the liner notes by his other alias “The Abstract”) gets his first production credit of the evening, as he builds this one around poppin’ drums and an ill Esther Phillips’ loop. Just Step Prelude – Mobb Deep affiliate, Big Noyd makes his first appearance of the evening, as he joins Prodigy to spit acapella rhymes on this prelude to the next song… Regardless, it’s still one of my least favorite songs on the album. Nas’ verse is still underwhelming, but Havoc’s instrumental sounds better than I remembered it (it reminds me of Gza’s “I Gotcha Back”, which ironically, I like). I remember being super disappointed by Nas’ verse and Havoc’s sleepy instrumental back in the day. Of course this was made a few years before Nas and Prodigy would begin their beef (good thing they didn’t say word is bond during the hook). Havoc’s mean instrumental sounds just as convincing and entertaining as the duo’s rhymes.Įye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mines) – Mobb Deep invites Raekwon and, arguably one of the top ten to ever spit on a mic, Nas to join them on this cipher joint as they pledge allegiance to their crews, or as the hooks says: “As time goes by, an eye for eye, we in this together son, your beef is mines, so long as the sun shines to light up the sky, we in this together son your beef is mines”. P and Havoc pick up where they left off at on “The Start Of Your Ending”, smacking you in the face with more tough talk and hood politicin’. Survival Of The Fittest – This was the second single from The Infamous. After all these years I still lol when I hear P dis rappers that talk “that crazy space shit that don’t even make no sense” ” and then threatens to “start punchin’ niggas in they face just for livin'”. The Infamous Prelude – Prodigy uses this 2 minute interlude to talk shit and take subliminals at random niggas and rappers (*cough* Keith Murray). The Start Of Your Ending (41st Side) – Havoc starts the album off with poppin’ drums placed underneath an evil piano loop that he and Prodigy use to set the mood for the evening, spittin’ their crime and violent hood rhymes. Let’s celebrate by revisiting this landmark album and see how it’s held up over the years. This April marked The Infamous‘ 25th birthday. The Infamous was a commercial success (earning Mobb Deep their first gold plaque, two months after its release) and is universally heralded as Mobb Deep’s best album and one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all-time. The liner notes for The Infamous credit Mobb Deep for most of the production work (but everybody knows Havoc is the real mastermind behind the Mobb’s music), with Q-Tip receiving production credit for three of the album’s tracks (Tribe Degrees of Separation: check).
After Juvenile Hell flopped, Havoc and Prodigy (RIP) would sever their ties with 4th & Broadway and sign with Loud Records, where they would release their next four albums, including the subject of today’s post, The Infamous. The lead single “Peer Pressure” produced by Premo, was dope, but the rest of the album left a lot to be desired ( I bought it on cd back in the day, but I have no idea what happened to it). Most casual fans don’t know that before Mobb Deep released The Infamous album in ’95 they released their debut album Juvenile Hell on 4th & Broadway Records back in 1993.
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