True or false. Prodigy was GOAT levels before the voice and energy change, pre HNIC.

[2ATMsYouSteppinOrWhat]

Definitely had one of the GOAT rants:

TRENDS PRODIGY HAS SET SINCE 1992 AND STILL IS SETTING IN 2008 AND BEYOND:

#1 TATTOO’S ON MY CHEST, ARMS AND HAND SINCE I WAS 12 YEARS OLD

#2 RAPPING WORDS THAT DONT ALWAYS RHYME

#3 PUTTING WORDS TOGETHER THAT DONT RHYME AND MAKING THEM RHYME "big guns down in santa barbray, my crew do it the mobb way every day, crime pay who wanna gun play thrill me. nikkas kill me grillin me you wanna look peep the 9 milly now undress you know the drilly. nikkas suspect weak links pose threat, i have yet to met challenger who go against my set"

Not gonna lie i hate that he did that shyt

 

[TripleAgent]

Not gonna lie i hate that he did that shyt

I don't like when MCs do that, either. I usually give P a pass, but I HATE when Black Thought does it. Someone pointed it out to me, and I never heard him the same again.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

This is basically the same thread I made about Styles P everything 2006 & before


You can tell HNIC was recorded in probably a couple year span where P was still in prime form with his voice & flow, probably 1998ish, and when he started transitioning to the old grumpy man delivery. Bad run in with drugs fukked him up

He was never as good or naturally as talented as Nas, but he was the best at what he did. And the Mobb was releasing the best material in their catalog in an era where dudes like Nas were looked at as going pop or selling out

Prodigy said he was recording HNIC and Murda Muzik at the same time. Quiet Storm/White Lines was supposed to be on HNIC but when it blew up Havoc convinced him to put him on the hook so it could be a Mobb Deep song

 

[FunkDoc1112]

I think in the book he admitted he wasn't on his game for Infamy and it was just he had a lot of stuff going on in his life to really focus

To expand on this, on HNIC/Murda Muzik he was completely sober and living clean. After a suspect batch of coke triggered a bad sickle cell attack in early 1998, he quit drugs and alcohol - hence the line on White Lines "I spent too many night sniffing coke, gettin right, wastin my life/Now I'm tryna make things right." But then he relapsed in late 2000 because of some stress going on his life and that's when he started to really fall off and get lazy with his raps.

 

[Corndog]

Hell on Earth Prodigy is basically as good as it gets

 

[Whips-n-Chains]

Hell on Earth Prodigy is basically as good as it gets

Word...he was nice of The Infamous but much more elementary. That ~18 months between releases he really honed his craft

 

[mobbinfms]

Speaking of HNIC, where's the original version of Keep It Thoro with Havoc on the hook? Can't find that anywhere.

That wasn’t the original. They tried to recreate the Quiet Storm magic of putting Havoc on the hook after the song had already been out there. They had to remove the “with no chorus” part
There’s a 12 inch with the remix with Hav.

 

[Newark88]

That wasn’t the original. They tried to recreate the Quiet Storm magic of putting Havoc on the hook after the song had already been out there. They had to remove the “with no chorus” part
There’s a 12 inch with the remix with Hav.

I could've sworn the version with Havoc came out before. If I'm not mistaken, that song landed on the Backstage soundtrack. I must be getting my timelines mixed up.

 

[manyfaces]

Undercovers (short for incognito)....never realized he was saying Ducatis all these years, thats why i love rap shyt was wrong and still fire in my head

That's actually a great subject. I know there was a old thread on SOHH (damn, no more hamster) about lyrics you had wrong when you were a kid. Good thread to see what we all had fukked up.

 

[Yehuda]

I think his voice got better over the years, the delivery actually goes right with the lyrical content if you ask me. As for the bars it's whatever, I personally don't see a huge drop-off other than the fact that sometimes he wasn't even rhyming.

 

[OGBobbyJohnson]

 

[2ATMsYouSteppinOrWhat]

prime p was top 2/3 probably the most mc other than Jadakiss

maybe not the most technical but the way he put words together was something else

easily in my top 5

 

[the cac mamba]

it's funny, i was listening to keep it thoro the other day, and i noticed his voice/delivery was different. and i hadnt noticed it before

but that run from 95-00 is he's in my top 6 or so

 

[Crumple]

you could see around Murda Muzik era he was losing it but he was still dropping some of the best verse of his career (Allustrious, The Realest, Quiet Storm)

I have to re-listen to it. But that album is near perfect.

 

[Sean7]

it's funny, i was listening to keep it thoro the other day, and i noticed his voice/delivery was different. and i hadnt noticed it before

but that run from 95-00 is he's in my top 6 or so

No doubt. I love HNIC but I know what you mean he started that slip on the album and transitioned in to 2000s P which was a fall off from his prime, bigtime IMO. I liked a few albums later but he never was effortless putting words together and the one heads sampled over and over P we all loved... That run as you said was crazy, after that it was a noticeable fall off to later on when he didn't really rhyme at all half the time.