BY
BONSU THOMPSON
JUNE 21, 2017
R.I.P. TO THE H.N.I.C.
Albert "Prodigy" Johnson was a poetical prophet
I have no interest in talking about Prodigy’s death. I have zero energy to discuss his sickle cell or any of his other health issues. I don’t wanna hear about the bad habits he kicked and then relapsed on. At this very moment, I honestly don’t care to know the exact cause of his passing. What I know right now is that another legendary scribe who was a pioneer in the era of rap that raised me and whom later became a mutual admirer in the profession of hip hop has left us before the age of 45. So all I want to do is talk about P’s life. Actually, you can read that anywhere. I’d rather use this space to illuminate, specifically, his lifeline, and how he put it in between the paper’s lines.
Doesn’t matter who is in your Top 10 list today. Prodigy is an unequivocal rap legend. An indisputable pioneer. At his peak, he was the favorite of most sane purists, especially in the Northeast. Two sentence history lesson: In the early ’90s, after Dr. Dre quarantined the CB4 virus and began raising gangster rap above Crip and Blood levels, New York City MCs realigned hip hop back to its roots of reality journalism, serving unfiltered snapshots of a forgotten black man in an unforgiving metropolis via supreme lyricism. By 1995, an estimated 80% of the top spitters resided in the Big Apple (Snoop was out West, OutKast were down bottom). Mobb Deep, following in the footsteps of Biggie, Wu-Tang and Queensbridge neighbor Nas, added to the monopoly with their second album and instant classic
The Infamous, which was powered by Havoc’s colorful score and P’s ice-veined antagonism.
Mobb’s lead vocalist is what you would get if Ice Cube’s pen and Eazy-E’s demeanor were mixed and fed 80 proof and chocolate marijuana from inside the world’s largest housing projects—a poet who is sophisticated in his savagery (“It’s the nikka in me accompanied by the Cognac”.) This is why Prodigy more than held his own next to the best writers. Check him alongside Nas and Raekwon on
The Infamous’ “
Eye For An Eye” (“Watch me while jake tryna knock me and lock me/ But I’ll be on the low sippin’ Asti Spumante.”) Two years later, he would edge out Rae (in his prime) on
Hell On Earth’s “
Nighttime Vultures” (“Fluidly, my mind flooded with jewels infinite”). Don’t forget P had the best verse on LL Cool J’s “I Shot Ya.”
All the best MCs are visual artists. On his debut, Jay Z altered your vision with frosty Rolexes and gold champagne bottles. Lil Wayne verses are movie scenes. Nas opened eyes to the hustlers and crawling customers outside his project window. Drake puts emotions in 3D. P’s specialty was painting pain. He not only had an adroit imagination for how to cause bodily harm, but also a paintbrush that visualized the after effects of the accosting with descriptive precision. “Get chopped up grade A meat—something delicious/ And laced back up—2 Gs worth of stitches/ To reconstruct your face and learn how to speak again.”
Before Prodigy became vegan, he was pure carnivore. His import and export was beef. As diminutive as P was physically, he was also one of the game’s largest gladiators during rap’s most dangerous period. He challenged the best in and out of the studio. He stopped the music on
The Infamous album to put a foot on Keith Murray’s neck, and continued firing shots at Murray—Redman too—on Mobb’s next album. He engaged and never backed down. Even after suffering a KO from Jay Z via Summer Jam screen, he popped back up three months later, firing (see his “Burn” verse).
Most consider Nas and Jay’s feud the greatest era in rap beef. P was in the crosshairs from both directions. Their lyrical conflict is comparable to heavyweight boxing’s greatest era: the 1970s. So if Jay is Muhammad Ali and Nas is Joe Frazier, with Tupac as the barbaric George Foreman, then Prodigy is the under-celebrated but historically undeniable Ken Norton. As did Norton, P fought the Kings of his era, leaving scars on pride and reputation. Biggie’s “Who Shot Ya” gets credited as the best blow against Pac, but one could make a case that P’s verse on “
Drop A Gem” was iller. No other rapper spoke greasier to Shakur nor threatened more direct.
Identical to Prodigy, Norton was a spectacular combination of craftsmanship, IQ and brutal force with an awkward but effective defense. Only difference between the pugilist and the MC who used to “
punch nikkas in their face just for livin‘” is that it was the rapper’s offense that was awkward, yet effective. P gave birth to “Dun Rap,” an off-beat broken language often imitated by Queens rappers that, at times, made “bad English” sound good (“I pop more guns than you holdin’ them”) or offered remixed variations of standard words. (Ex: “We about to get lumply.” Translation: We’re preparing to engage in an attack which will leave our opponents with protruding bruises). Sometimes P’s bars wouldn’t even rhyme. A flaw for most rappers that became an asset of P’s. If you don’t understand, simply ingest his solo single “Keep It Thoro.”
Prodigy’s power was equally in his brutal bars and the conviction with which he would assault ears. He had the ability to convince you—despite however many years of English you studied—that his imperfect prose was perfect. He was that convincing. The perfect general for any
war going on outside.
As a teen, I fell under the influence of Prodigy on many occasions. He most certainly had me vomiting vodka and milk at age 16, and hunting for a Hennessy jersey at 17 (there was no Hennessy jersey). He warned that letting small things continuously slide would lead to failure.
I wish he held tighter to that last piece of advice. Those small slides will absolutely catch up. I also hope he understands what he’s given us. More so I hope we understand what he’s given us. There is no Cam’ron or 50 Cent or even Schoolboy Q today without the Dun spit of Havoc’s Co-D.
But even farther back, during a Rudy Giuliani term when black boys were as invisible as ever, Prodigy reported live from the darkness. This while simultaneously attempting what every inner city black kid spends most of their life trying to do: stay alive.
R.I.P. To The H.N.I.C.
