When Jay put Prodigy on that Summer Jam Screen what was the aftermath?

[scuba]

I mean it was an ill battle rap moment, it didn't RATIONALLY fukk up Mobb Deep's legacy, it was a baby pic. But IMAGEWISE prodigy had a gang of L's building up at that point this was just the funny straw that broke the camels back. So of course logically it wasnt shyt, but it was the moment that it turned from P is that dude but he been slipping, to P is a clown who used to be able to rap.

Ultimately P was already long long long into the fall off period where he thought he didnt have to actually rhyme anymore... thats why J went at him. Takeover wasnt supposed to be a war, it was J just officially crossing off the dudes that had already fallen off... If P had been able to muster a dope response and a solid album he woulda rebounded fine... but he was trash at that point.

 

[Wacky D]

It was a brilliant move on Jay's part, who had been getting hit with little underhanded verses from P, who was already beginning the decline into spoken word thugging, for about 18 months, previous. He hadn't said anything specific yet, this was his response, and it was impactful....not jut to P, but Nas too. People thought he got buried, and Jay was just stunting on the whole game at that point. Majority of fans definitely did start looking at Mobb Deep differently, and maybe forever, based on that.

Anyone trying to brush this aside, like some product of an older generations imagination....has some bizarre agenda. It was a defining moment in hip hop, and a major event, shaping the rest of the 2000 era. It's not like I stopped listening to P, or Mobb, and P had been languishing for the better part of 2 years, despite a quality release 'HNIC', summer jam sent them into a slump like Ja Rule after 50 Cent. 'Infamy' was universally panned, and they were an afterthought for years afterward.....truthfully, it took til 'Free Agents' for them to come back..and it still wasn't a triumphant return, just kind of a reemergence. Trying to say 'Takeover/Summer Jam' didn't hurt P/Mobb, is like 'Ether' didn't hurt Jay.

@ the bolded, it was a nice hay-maker blow but people acting like it hurt mobb deep's career are going overboard. you got people in here saying prodigy didn't know how to rap anymore because of takeover.

bottom line, they were already kind of as you alluded to at the beginning of this post.

the LOX had already taken mobb deep's spot long before this. and jay wanted no problems with them.

takeover was basically somebody snatching this guy's cane ---> .

and jay thought nas was nearing the same point of his career as prodigy, and ended up exposing himself.

 

[JustCKing]

That picture on the Summerjam screen alone didn't hurt, but the direction of Mobb Deep combined with that incident did. Their first single from Infamy featured 112 (I still think it's a nice song) which was a departure from what they are known for. I still think the production sounds like a Mobb song, but having 112 on it made it sound different. Sure Mobb had R&B hooks on previous albums, but not as big as 112 (who was coming off of "Peaches & Cream"). People were also expecting Mobb to go at Jay with a "Drop A Gem On Em" caliber track.

 

[the cac mamba]

P was born in 74.. the ballerina pic is from 88.. Shook Ones dropped in 94..

wait a second, jay said they were from 88 so he could rhyme it with 'weight'

besides, in those days jays outfits were much gayer than prodigys

 

[Wacky D]

That picture on the Summerjam screen alone didn't hurt, but the direction of Mobb Deep combined with that incident did. Their first single from Infamy featured 112 (I still think it's a nice song) which was a departure from what they are known for. I still think the production sounds like a Mobb song, but having 112 on it made it sound different. Sure Mobb had R&B hooks on previous albums, but not as big as 112 (who was coming off of "Peaches & Cream"). People were also expecting Mobb to go at Jay with a "Drop A Gem On Em" caliber track.

that was the 2nd video.

the 1st video off the album was "burn", and jay got dissed on there.

 

[re'up]

You are trying to underplay it though...for whatever reason. Jay wasn't the nail in the coffin, but it sent them into a free-fall, an oblivion of diminished sales, diminished respect, that effected them deeply...Because of P slipping so much, 'Infamy' was going to be trash anyway, but that album was considered a joke, not to mention them prancing around with 112 in 'Hey Luv' or 'Burn' which was a mess of a track...For Jay coming of a critically and commercially iconic album, 'Infamy' was a fukking joke.....hence so was Mobb Deep. Where were they in 2002, as a whole? They didn't do anything. Jay didn't bury Prodigy, but he nearly did, he sent them off the map, until a return in 2003....hindsight is everything, yeah theres some dope Mobb shyt on 'Free Agents', and even 'Infamy', but back then...they just didn't garner the kind of respect and recognition they had their entire career...The skills side was one thing, but P's personal antics and Jays 'hay maker' as you put it....came as close to destroying Mobb Deep as any artist in the genre....

Also, you're not admitting what dude is saying, that's 100% true, people were thinking Mobb was going to come back with a vicious, knife in the rib cage type response....what they got was undercooked, disorganized, desperate, scattered collection of badly produced lines vaguely going at Jay....it was indefensible...

 

[AkaDemiK]

Most 9-10 year olds in 1984 looked or tried to look exactly like that.

Word.

The diss was funny, but when you actually look at the pic...and P's age...Hov was fukkin retarded. The nikka wanted to be MJ as a kid.....not a fukkin ballerina..

 

[the cac mamba]

for the record if nas had hung that jay effigy at the next summer jam it wouldve not only dwarfed this, but been the GOAT moment in rap history

 

[AkaDemiK]

for the record if nas had hung that jay effigy at the next summer jam it wouldve not only dwarfed this, but been the GOAT moment in rap history

to this day it's fukk hot 97's dikk riding staff for ruining something special.

 

[Billy Ocean]

You are trying to underplay it though...for whatever reason. Jay wasn't the nail in the coffin, but it sent them into a free-fall, an oblivion of diminished sales, diminished respect, that effected them deeply...Because of P slipping so much, 'Infamy' was going to be trash anyway, but that album was considered a joke, not to mention them prancing around with 112 in 'Hey Luv' or 'Burn' which was a mess of a track...For Jay coming of a critically and commercially iconic album, 'Infamy' was a fukking joke.....hence so was Mobb Deep. Where were they in 2002, as a whole? They didn't do anything. Jay didn't bury Prodigy, but he nearly did, he sent them off the map, until a return in 2003....hindsight is everything, yeah theres some dope Mobb shyt on 'Free Agents', and even 'Infamy', but back then...they just didn't garner the kind of respect and recognition they had their entire career...The skills side was one thing, but P's personal antics and Jays 'hay maker' as you put it....came as close to destroying Mobb Deep as any artist in the genre....

Stop it breh. Mobbs decline is due 98% because of the quality decline in music. Jay Summer Jam pic was a lil stunt that would of been put in it's proper perspective if Prodigy would of been in his prime and responded appropriately with quality music. 2pac was the biggest rapper on Earth when he dissed Mobb Deep and that shyt didn't faze them. So u saying 2001 Jay Z, with baby pics, did? Bullshyt.

 

[head shots101]

nah that shyt hurt them....P getting robbed etc was the icing on the cake

 

[Urbanmiracle]

I was cool with this thread until y'all started shytting on Burn. Burn was a great single. That got heavy play and everyone came correct. Yes even P. That nikka didn't give a fukk about rhyming super lyrical you could tell that nikka was pissed the fukk off. He wanted to murder Jay literally.

But as others said, takeover, summer jam, prodigy regression and Nas pretty much shytting on every crab ass nikka in QB, it was the end of P being mentioned as one of the best. I hear the old mobb deep verses, it's sad. They had a freestyle over Qtips The World Is Yours remix instrumental. P was killing it.

 

[Newark88]

The Summer Jam screen incident was at the right place, right time. I was there that night, and the whole crowd went crazy. As people said, leading up to SJ, Prodigy was already starting to look weak. And it was mostly from the rumors of him getting robbed and hemmed up. Who remembers when Star (of Star and Bucwild) got at Prodigy about these accusations earlier that year? Plus, at this time Jay could do no wrong and was at his strongest. So when you add all those factors in, it definitely hurt Mobb's image. It may not have ended their career but they never recovered completely from it. In retrospect, the pic of him looking like MJ may have been blown out of proportion but people forget, the hip hop audience weren't as forgiving back then as they are now. Any blemish on your credibility was almost fatal to your career.

 

[the artist known az]

no way prodigy is 14 in that pic

Him & Havoc looked young as hell in that Shook Ones video so it aint no big stretch

 

[bishop]

In retrospect, the pic of him looking like MJ may have been blown out of proportion but people forget, the hip hop audience weren't as forgiving back then as they are now. Any blemish on your credibility was almost fatal to your career.

this is spot on.. people trying to rationalize what age P was or that all kids his age wanted to be like mike is irrelavent. the pic was in such contrast to mobb's image, that all those finer points didn't matter. i'm not trying to romanticize "back in the days", but your image/background were everything back then and this definitely helped damage people's perceptions of P and the mobb.