it's probably your age & i'm making an assumption based on your username that maybe you aren't the usual demographic of hip hop message board internet old heads who are usually born about 1980-1985. being a 70's baby, mind you in the same age range as the icons we talk about most here, i have had to endure this preposterous hell on earth over infamous and even worse that it was written over illmatic nonsense more than i care to LMAO. i try not to pull rank (age) but sometimes it gets to me b
for instance. i'm not a podcast dude at all but a moment comes to mind on math hoffa's my expert opinion. math is a young'n to me, born in 1980, so there are sometimes through no fault of his own where he can't understand certain hip hop things that come up with his older guests. his conversation with havoc comes to mind since we talking mobb deep..
so math didn't know that the original name of the group was poetical prophets to which math was shocked when havoc told him. to math who became "fully awake" with music pop culture probably around 1991 when he was in 6th grade, the name poetical prophets sounded like something he would attribute to a group like arrested development or pm dawn. but you see he wasn't from our era to understand that inferior name to mobb deep or not, it actually
was in alignment with their content
using prophet wasn't considered bohemian nerd rap, it was considered cool and street in 1988 such as public enemy prophets of rage. it had a malcolm x flair to it in the pro black '86-'91 era that was widely accepted among the drug dealer type nxggas hav and p based their rap personas on. and "poetical" was a trending rap adjective in the early nineties. we can hear gangster rapper kurupt use the word poetical on snoop's 1993 debut on the song for my n#ggas and my b#itches when he ended his last verse with, "Peep the murderous styles and the poetical techniques." lol ya dig? and in 1991 organized konfusion used poetical tons of times in their rhymes
but if you're not born in the 70's where you grew up on rap that was rapping about rap. constantly flaunting your use of words, techniques, and how you were better with words than another rapper...,, which of course had already fell by the wayside by the time math became of age to be the youth that drove hip hop culture forward, then to him poetical prophets sounds like something a group like mobb deep would never call themselves because they were too street
i've realized that my experience is different than most internet hip hop old heads. i'm old enough to have been in high school dancing to kwame the rhythm and twin hype for those who like to groove. so my outlook is going to be totally different than those who i call "the young old heads" the young old heads not only dominate the coli but internet hip hop discourse in general. most dudes my age use the internet but aren't
on the internet like that. at best will use facebook and drop corny quotes no one cares to read lol. damn i'm flabby but i digress... it is hard for me sometimes as much as i love this place and respect the sheer level of intelligent hip hop conversation on the coli...
like, not only am i hearing that hell on earth, a clearly inferior album (but still dope) is better than the holy grail the infamous, nxggas are actually saying prodigy and hav GOT BETTER LYRICALLY on that 3rd album?!?
NO WAY.
but i once caught a youtube short of memphis bleek on drink champs, a 70's baby like myself, who was asked by nore about mobb deep the infamous. and i stood up an applauded when bleek said that was prodigy's lyrical peak and he never reached that level again. i don't say it to denigrate bandana nor do i think bleek said that just because prodigy had problems with jay... no... bleek said it because it is true! the majority of us thought so at the time! little did we know that the dudes behind us, pause, who were still in high school and middle school felt a whole lot different. lol i'm forced to concede and let it rock but it gets on my nerves sometimes b LMAO
) for drastic weather changes season-to-season.
My friends joke about me being 20 years older than I actually am 
. Both excellent hardcore rap albums, you’re right either way.
