Going to jail is beyond what anyone thinks it is.
— Prodigy
Mobb Deep is a street-rap group. We from off the streets.
I love New York. It 'as made me who I am, know what I mean?
I'm not scared to speak my mind and tell you what it is.
Nas is like King Queensbridge: he's the man out there.
Going to prison actually helped save my life, I believe.
When I first went in, I realized there's no green vegetables. They serve, like, spinach once every two weeks. The three meals they serve inmates every day is like slop.
The sickle-cell got me where doctors said I couldn't play sports, I couldn't overexert myself.
I make all types of music. People wanna put me in a little box, and they get mad when I don't stay in there.
Sickle cell was my life before hip-hop. I ain't really have no life - that was it.
It took me a while to like Wu-Tang's style.
You can never go back to a time and try to recreate that sound, because that time is done.
Actually doing a song, going to the studio, and just getting out on paper your anger makes you feel a little better sometimes.
I like a lot of the new artists, but there's only one I can name that stands out to me the most: Kendrick Lamar.
Hip-hop music was our life.
Basically, I've always raised my kids that people learn from their mistakes, and every father wants their kids to be better than them.
Growing up in bad neighborhoods, you see and experience a lot.
We used to cut out of school and go to Coney Island to record songs almost every day.
Jive is a good label, but they're R&B'ed out.
I read certain things about history. I don't like fiction. I read about stuff that's real, stuff that's goin' on in the world.
I've learned to respect Rick Ross' music.
The music is just real powerful when Mobb Deep and Nas work together.
Intellectuals that read a lot of books might not have been interested in Mobb Deep before 'My Infamous Life,' but now they might go, 'Who are these guys?' and check us out.
Beauty ain't always a little, cute colored flower. Beauty is anything where people be like, 'Damn.'
I'm a fan of hip-hop. I'm a fan of rap, so anything new that's happening, I'm hip to it.
I always make hardcore songs, hits for the block.
From the neighborhoods that we grew up in, we had to learn how to deal with people. How to keep certain people at a distance, how to cut people off completely.
I was real serious when it came to rapping. I still do, but even more so when I was real young.
Our first name was the Poetical Prophets before we changed it to Mobb Deep, and when I look back on it now, that was, like, a ill name for us because that is what we really were.
We'll never change the fact that we are hardcore hip-hop and we make rebellious hip-hop music, and we're going to keep doing that and progress with our production, progress with our lyrical styles, be creative, and just have fun with it.
That's probably the key to our success and our longevity, sticking to our formula and what we do best, the hardcore Mobb Deep sound, rather than chasing trains. But we're always experimenting with the art and the creativity of hip-hop.
Premier was one of the first producers that we reached out to, and he was like, 'Hell yeah! Let's get to work.' He was showing us love and giving young, new artists a chance.
You gotta be careful and just learn from your mistakes.
My family had a lot to do with 'My Infamous Life.' They were the inspiration behind me starting to write. I had an interesting family life dating way back, and they did a lot in their lifetime.
'Cobra Clutch' was to let the world know we ain't going nowhere. We got the game in the cobra clutch.
As you get older, everybody changes. You don't do the stupid stuff that you used to.
You got to treat Mobb Deep different because our fan base is different. Our fan base is in the 'hood across the world.
We gotta keep our sound alive, that dark hip-hop.
If you look at my rap sheet, it's very long.
Anything that Havoc or I do is always going to point back to Mobb Deep.
I been going to the hospital since I was born, about 10 times a year, for about a week or two each time.
I'm a creative person, and I'm gonna be creative, so whoever's upset because of that, that's too bad.
The aggressiveness of it attracted me to hip-hop because I was angry inside. I was an angry kid because of the sickle cell. So I liked the anger in hip-hop. That's what attracted me to it; that's what made me want to do it. It helped me get my aggression out.
To me, I got a bunch of haters. Mobb Deep - and Prodigy, speaking for myself - I got a bunch of haters.
I don't like new people coming around me. I'm going to really be leery and watch you and take my time before I embrace you.
In the beginning, we might have been focused on totally just music and being famous, just wanting to have fame and make hot music, but as we got older, we had to understand that this is a business and that our moves need to be calculated.
Hip-hop basically controls the world through fashion, through music, through language, through culture. It's basically running the world, no matter what anyone wants to think, and that's just the way it is.
Premier came into the picture when were starting to make our own beats and all that.
My kids know they can't make the same mistakes I've made. They've been through a lot with me always being on the road.
Don't get 'Return of The Mac' confused as a solo album. That was just a mixtape.
