american rapper albert johnson better known by his stage name prodigy was born on november 2nd
1974 in hempstead new york his greatest professional successes were accomplished as one
half of the hip-hop duo mob d prodigy's pursuit of entertainment stardom is no surprise considering
the fact that he comes from a family lineage of musicians and singers his father was a member of
the 50s do up group the chanters while his mother was a member of the 60s girl group the crystals
prodigy met his future partner in music the queensford raised kiwan muchita better known as
havoc in high school when they were both attending the high school of art and design in manhattan
prior to the duo making things official a teenage prodigy under the alias the golden
child had already secured a demo deal with jai records and landed an uncredited guest
appearance on the boys in the hood soundtrack for his contribution to the song too young by r b
group high five after prodigy and havoc became good friends and realized combining their talents
could lead to something special prodigy walked away from his solo deal with jive
and decided they should make a go of things together they began hustling demos outside the
offices of various record labels in the area they were pretty much ignored by everyone except q-tip
they spotted the rapper coming out of a building one day and he was willing to listen to what
they had to offer q-tip liked what he heard and decided to bring them into the depth jam office
to be introduced to everyone numerous appearances at industry parties and talent shows got people to
know who they were and grow their popularity the next move for the duo as the newly formed poetical
prophets was their appearance in source magazine's column on signtibe as the name suggests it served
as the go-to place for new rappers without a record deal to get some shine it was well known
in the industry that if you got on that list a deal was pretty much guaranteed to follow and
that's exactly what happened poetical prophets inked a deal with fourth and broadway records
a subsidiary of island records they weren't the only label though that showed interest another
up-and-coming music mogul by the name of sean puff daddy combs was also interested in signing them
in fact he was the one that suggested that they change their name
prodigy and havoc decided to go with the money thus ending up at fourth and broadway
however they did take puffy's advice about the name change and poetical prophets became mob deep
in 1993 mobdeep released their debut album titled juvenile hell
it didn't do well and as a result coupled with the fact that their label was already on the decline
the duos soon found themselves without a home two years later though they'd be back with the release
of the infamous on loud records it features the smash shook ones part two 1995 would also be the
year for some major feuds to begin between the duo to a greater degree prodigy specifically
and their peers in the industry prodigy ruffled some feathers on the track the infamous prelude
included on their second album when he took shots at rappers who talked about quote how much weed
you smoke and quote space death squad member keith murray took particular offense to those lyrics
since he was the one who did just that things were apparently temporarily squashed when they later
met at a video shoot but got fired up again when prodigy said more of the same in his appearance
on ll cool j's i shot your remix which also featured key keith then saw prodigy outside
of a new york nightclub one evening and put the paws on him as he chased him down the street
snoop dogg and the west coast group the dog pound then released the track new york new york that
september the music video shot in the city showed the kicking down of buildings which many new york
artists prodigy included found incredibly disrespectful they fired back a rebuttal
with the song lala by capone and noriega featuring tragedy gaddafi and mobdeep the new york new york
video would actually trigger another major beef involving prodigy this time it would involve jay-z
and his peculiar decision as far as prodigy was concerned to reference what went on in that video
on his 1998 song money cash hope it didn't make any sense to prodigy since he considered the beef
between him snoop and the dog pound none of jay's business and it also annoyed him that he made the
statement three years after the fact prodigy also continued to get under the west coast crew's skin
after his appearance on the llc i shot your emails tupac shakur apparently believed the song
to be a direct diss referring to his robbery and shooting at quad recording studios in manhattan
several factors did allude to that very incident namely the song's title which many assumed was
connected to the notorious b.i.g who shot ya certain lyrics and the timing of its release
the track would also be the first time prodigy would refer to the secret society
known as the illuminati while gearing up to begin work on their next project
mob deep found themselves on the receiving end of some major vitriol from tupac in the outro
of his song hit him up he diss the duo as well as other artists mob deep responded with drop a gem
on him just a couple of weeks before tupac's murder at the end of 1996 mob deep released
their third studio album hell on earth prodigy took the opportunity to recall the altercation
he'd had with keith murray in the song in the long run keith responded with the song call my
name on his album that dropped just one week later they would continue to go back and forth for many
years sharing disses on numerous songs their next release 1999's murder music unfortunately ended up
getting heavily bootlegged and resulted in the duo having to go back into the studio to record
some new tracks it would still end up being the duo's most commercially successful album to date
and featured the hit quiet storm also at this time the duo would start work on an urban drama movie
that would carry the same name as their 1999 album the following year prodigy released
his debut solo album titled hnic in the midst of doing his solo thing he also continued to
work on mob deep projects their next effort infamy dropped at the end of 2001. at the same time after
years of subliminal back-and-forth jabs jay-z debuted his mob deep diss on the track takeover
live at summerjam and included the now infamous picture of a young prodigy at his grandmother's
dance studio in full michael jackson attire mob deep responded with the tracks burn featuring vita
and crawling things ultimately calmed down between the two including handshakes at puffy's restaurant
justin's after they both found themselves there on the same night an unusual beef between prodigy
and nas also boiled over around this time prodigy and nas had previously been friends
until some of nasa's people got in his ear feeling prodigy was overstepping his bounds by
representing queensbridge when he wasn't from that part of the city originally the duo carried on
with america's nightmare in 2004 which sold poorly and led to the group's departure from the label
after they cut a new deal with 50 cents g unit records they dropped blood money in 2006. even
while being on the grind in the studio prodigy still found time to get himself into trouble
outside the studio in november 2003 he was arrested in cohost new york and charged with
third degree criminal possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of marijuana three years later
prodigy was arrested in the city once again and charged with illegal possession of a firearm found
in his car during a traffic stop after conducting what he says was an illegal search of the vehicle
a six-figure dollar amount customized bulletproof suv police recovered a handgun a year later he
was sentenced to serve three and a half years in prison for illegal possession of
a firearm during the ordeal prodigy would speak candidly about his numerous years of experience
being profiled by new york city police by a group he called the hip-hop squad simply because of the
type of music they produced and all the money they were making from it prodigy apparently wasn't the
only one they had their eye on he claimed that nas jay-z wu-tang the notorious b.i.g
among others were also on their radar another shocking detail he revealed was that after his
arrest there was tremendous pressure put on him by law enforcement to get him to help them take down
one person in particular by at their suggestion planting guns and drugs in the person's car
if he agreed which he didn't he was told that he could go free the person that the cops were so
thirsty to lock up was 50 cent just before prodigy began his sentence he would be involved in more
rapper rivalry in september 2007 after an impromptu performance by saigon during a
mob deep show words were exchanged between him and prodigy things quickly escalated into an argument
which resulted with saigon punching prodigy in the face prodigy had previously made a comment
about not liking saigon in an interview however the craziest part of the whole thing was that
saigon's issue with prodigy had much more to do with prodigy's issue with true life as saigon and
true life were like brothers and he wanted to have his back new eurekan rapper truelive had
paid prodigy a healthy sum of money to do a record with him prodigy did just that but then went and
spit the same verse on another project that was then released effectively preventing true life
from releasing the one they'd already done together after repeatedly trying to get in
touch with prodigy so they could figure something else out true life essentially got ghosted by him
their fallout was even documented in the 2003 film beef about the history of hip-hop views
even while behind bars prodigy still kept his name in the streets doing collaborations with
the likes of unpacino big twins and the alchemist his follow-up solo album came in 2008 titled
hnic part two prodigy was released from prison on march 7 2011 after serving three years that same
year he released his autobiography my infamous life the autobiography of mob deep's prodigy
he gets very personal in the book and speaks fondly about being married to a woman named kiki
with whom he has two children he was so in love with her that he turned down the chance to hook up
with mary j blige who attempted to pursue him the following year prodigy dropped two albums within
that 12-month period hnic part three in the summer and the bumpy johnson album in the fall one of the
reasons he was able to pull off that feat could be attributed to him having more time on his hands
since mob deep was no more in july of that year a series of derogatory comments about prodigy
popped up on havoc's twitter account including accusing prodigy of engaging in homosexual
relationships in prison at first havoc claimed that his account had been hacked however he
later confirmed that he did in fact write the tweets he also admitted he was angry at the time
and that it was the wrong thing to do yet later he released a diss track aimed at prodigy
called separated real from the fake prodigy didn't respond to the song choosing instead
to publicly state that mob d would eventually reconcile in the early part of 2013 the duo
announced that they indeed had reconciled and were going on tour havoc would reveal to vlad tv
years later that they decided to reconnect because they knew they would be more successful together
than apart in april 2014 mob deep released the infamous mob deep their eighth studio album
prodigies fifth and final album hegelian dialectic the book of revelation dropped in january 2017.
the album was intended to be the first in a series of three albums he planned to release
over the course of several months but that was not meant to be five months later on june 20th 2017
prodigy passed away in hospital in las vegas nevada he was 42 years old he'd been hospitalized
for complications related to his sickle cell anemia that it flared up after a show they had
just done he was diagnosed with the ss type of the disease at just three months of age and dealt with
the excruciating pain the disorder brings his entire life a couple of days after prodigy's
passing a mural dedicated to him was painted in queensbridge unfortunately vandals defaced
it with paint it was cleaned off but after it happened again the mural was eventually taken down
reports claim prodigy was found unresponsive by hospital staff and that he died from accidentally
choking on an egg the following year his family and estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit
alleging that the hospital breached their duty of care for prodigy by quote failing
to maintain a working iv access and by quote failing to continuously monitor oxygen levels
as ordered by physicians in the hospital and that those failures led to his death many
members of the hip-hop community share their shocked reactions to prodigy's untimely death
by posting photos thoughts and condolences of the late mc to his family on social media
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