The Infamous

The Infamous is Mobb Deep’s second album, Prodigy and Havoc, released by Loud, RCA and BMG on 25 April 1995. Juvenile Hell had come out in 1993 and had not settled who they were. They recorded this one in New York at Battery, Platinum Island, the Firehouse and Unique. Havoc produced most of it. Q-Tip produced and mixed pieces as well. Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah and Q-Tip appear as guests. The sound is grim and local: Queensbridge, a year after Illmatic, as told by two younger men who were interested in survival more than in jazz-sample grandeur.

Shook Ones, Pt. II had already been a single, on 7 February 1995. Survival of the Fittest followed the album, on 29 May 1995. The February single is the one the culture kept. A piano figure, minor and nagging. A drum that sounds like a threat delivered quietly. Prodigy’s voice, calm while it describes violence, which is the unsettling part. Havoc’s production on the album matches that calm. There is space in the beats, and the space reads as absence. Temperature’s Rising and Give Up the Goods are the tracks where the guests walk into that absence and do not brighten it.

Illmatic, the year before, became the record people mean when they say New York rap grew up. The Infamous is the one that says the neighbourhood did not get safer just because a classic had been made about it. Havoc producing his own group is the authorship. Q-Tip in the credits is the bridge to a different Queens sound, used here as a colour, not as a rescue. Play Shook Ones, then Survival of the Fittest. February, April, May. One single that announced them, one album that made the announcement true, one single that repeated it for anyone who had missed the LP.

Sources

• The Infamous: Loud, RCA and BMG, 25 April 1995, studios, Shook Ones, Pt. II on 7 February 1995, Survival of the Fittest on 29 May 1995.