<\/p>\n
Havoc is moving and shaking on a crisp October afternoon, heading into our interview in a SiriusXM greenroom right after talking to DJ Whoo Kid at the radio conglomerate. Wearing a camo hoodie and pants with a black shirt, he greets me with a handshake, then intently checks his phone before settling into our conversation. It\u2019s the eve of the release of the final Mobb Deep album, Infinite, and he\u2019s likely finalizing the star-studded afterparty, which later included Infinite contributors Alchemist, Nas, and Raekwon (as well as a DJ set from Kid Capri and a powerful Busta Rhymes speech).<\/p>\n
After starting his weekly The Infamous Hour at on SiriusXM\u2019s Shade45 station\u2014where he plans to play music, tell stories, and interview peers every Sunday at 3 p.m. ET\u2014he has more carte blanche than usual in their Midtown offices. Alongside his recent radio turn, and prepping a cannabis shop in Queens, Havoc\u2019s been busy with joint projects like GUTT with RJ Payne and Ras Kass, as well as Wreckage Manner with Styles P. And for the past year plus, he\u2019s been working with The Alchemist to craft the recently released Infinite, culling through unreleased verses from the late Prodigy, who died at 42 in 2017<\/a>. The project is the latest from Mass Appeal\u2019s Legend Has It\u2026 series<\/a>.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n When I ask Havoc if this prerelease day feels any different with a Mobb Deep release, he quickly says, \u201cNah, it don\u2019t feel no different,\u201d before admitting, \u201cI mean, yes, a little bit different. I can\u2019t lie. Releasing a Mobb Deep project without Prodigy being here definitely feels different.\u201d<\/p>\n As Mobb Deep, he and his late brother-in-rhyme Prodigy created one of rap\u2019s most revered catalogs. After their Juvenile Hell debut commercially underwhelmed, their sophomore album The Infamous ingrained them into hip-hop culture with foundational records like \u201cShook Ones Pt. II\u201d and \u201cSurvival of the Fittest.\u201d They crafted a signature sound of hard drums over samples that could be soulful or gritty\u2014but entrancing either way\u2014providing a blueprint for future East Coast rappers. From there, they dropped canonical projects like Hell on Earth and Murda Muzik, with their last traditional release being 2014\u2019s The Infamous Mobb Deep.<\/p>\n Their work outside Mobb Deep further bolsters their importance to hip-hop: Havoc produced Jadakiss\u2019 \u201cWhy,\u201d Biggie and The LOX\u2019s \u201cLast Day,\u201d and contributed to Kanye West\u2019s The Life of Pablo, while Prodigy dropped 1999\u2019s H.N.I.C. and dozens of other projects that made him a solo force. Prodigy\u2019s Return of the Mac with The Alchemist helped spark the latter\u2019s run of rapper-producer collaborations, which opened an entire lane of creative partnerships in rap. Their impact is indelible\u2014which is why, after Prodigy\u2019s death, fans were devastated not only by his loss, but by the possibility that there would be no more Mobb Deep music.<\/p>\n Both Havoc and The Alchemist, who contributed to Mobb Deep\u2019s albums after Murda Muzik, assured fans that they would comb through Prodigy\u2019s vault and craft one final album. After promising the project for several years, production finally commenced about a year ago at The Alchemist\u2019s L.A. studio, alongside Prodigy\u2019s daughter, rapper-producer Santana Fox, and various close Mobb Deep affiliates.<\/p>\n Prodigy may no longer be here physically, but this project represents the best-case scenario for a posthumous album. Havoc says they built each song from Prodigy\u2019s verses and hooks, arranging them atop production that upholds the classic Mobb Deep aesthetic. Without Prodigy even being here, he still guided Infinite\u2019s thematic direction. These aren\u2019t stitched-together, bottom-barrel verses\u2014they sound like missives from beyond.<\/p>\n On verses where Prodigy raps, \u201cI lived a full life, don\u2019t cry for me\u201d on the Nas-featured \u201cPour the Henny,\u201d or opens \u201cClear Black Nights\u201d by noting, \u201cLookin\u2019 for me? Just look up in the sky on them clear black nights. You see me?\u201d it feels like he anticipated the possibility of a posthumous project. He was always open about his battle with sickle-cell disease, most notably on H.N.I.C.\u2019s \u201cYou Can Never Feel My Pain.\u201d Even beyond the grave, his sense of purpose pours through Infinite. This is their ninth album; people into numerology\u2014like Prodigy\u2014view nine as a number of completion. If this is the last Mobb Deep album, Infinite is fully worthy of their legacy.<\/p>\n Since Prodigy\u2019s passing, how often were you making beats that had that Mobb Deep energy? Of the songs that made Infinite, how many were originally for the Mobb Deep project you were working on years ago? I talked to Alchemist a couple of weeks ago<\/a> about y\u2019all kicking off the project in L.A. What was that like from your vantage point? How involved was Prodigy\u2019s daughter, rapper Santana Fox, in the project? Prodigy has a lot of eerie lines on the album, such as \u201cLook for me up in the sky on those clear black nights.\u201d Where do you think bars like that came from? Do you remember the first line like that that really took you aback? Prodigy was deeply into esoteric knowledge and the paranormal. How often did y\u2019all talk about things like that? Clipse are on the album on \u201cLook at Me.\u201d Did you ever have previous plans to work with them or Pusha as a soloist? Was that one where they sent the verses over? How did \u201cPour the Henny\u201d with Nas come together? Were y\u2019all really waking up at 7 p.m. every day like Prodigy says on \u201cTaj Mahal\u201d? So you and Raekwon are about to go on your joint 30th anniversary tour. When was your last national tour?<\/strong> I feel like they have a deeper appreciation for the essence of the culture\u2014more so than us, who focus on numbers and hype and shit like that.<\/strong> I saw you did The Infamous Live album <\/a>with Benny Reid. Can you tell me about crafting it? I\u2019ve seen Chief Keef and Rick Ross do orchestral shows. Would you be open to things like that in the future? Do you have plans to do a book, biopic, or documentary\u2014something to chronicle your life? Can you tell me about your Dirty P album with Method Man? Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Havoc is moving and shaking on a crisp October afternoon, heading into our interview in a SiriusXM greenroom right after talking to DJ Whoo Kid at the radio conglomerate. Wearing a camo hoodie and pants with a black shirt, he greets me with a handshake, then intently checks his phone before settling into our conversation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2089020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[393738,393737,364291,305314,305633],"class_list":["post-2089019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-havoc","tag-infamous-mobb","tag-mobb-deep","tag-prodigy","tag-the-alchemist"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\u2018Releasing-a-Project-Without-Prodigy-Definitely-Feels-Different.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2089019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089021,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089019\/revisions\/2089021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2089020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2089019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2089019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2089019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>Man, all the time, every day. I have beats that you wouldn\u2019t even know I made because they\u2019re not in that Mobb Deep vein. But when it came to making the Mobb Deep album, I had to keep it in that same vein. I don\u2019t want to stray outside my foundation, because my foundational fans are really important to me, and this one is for them. I\u2019m not trying to gain new fans. I\u2019m trying to stick to the formula with Mobb Deep. It\u2019s the last album, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be doing Mobb Deep any justice if I went outside that.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>None of them, actually. Everything I got was brand new to me\u2014stuff I never had before\u2014that I got from Prodigy\u2019s family. I took those and started working on the album.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>For me, it was good to step outside my comfort zone\u2014my crib, my studio\u2014to kick it with Al and get a little bit of new energy. Just to kick it off with him, vibe, and see where his head was at. That was important to me, to set it off that way.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Early on, she was involved\u2014being there, making sure we were doing right by her pops, and rightfully so. She was around when we first started breaking ground on the album at Alchemist\u2019s crib in L.A., just playing songs, letting her hear them, getting her blessings.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I think he was full of premonitions. Maybe he felt like he wasn\u2019t going to be here as long as the rest of us, and he was expressing those views. It really took me aback\u2014it kind of blew my mind and made me a little sad too, kinda sentimental. But that was Prodigy.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>When he was like, \u201cI\u2019ve lived a full life. Don\u2019t cry for me,\u201d as if he knew we\u2019d be listening to this one day when he was gone. That\u2019s crazy to me. I always bug out hearing that line. It never gets old.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>We talked about that all the time. That was one of our deep connections, among other things. He was more public with it than me\u2014I was behind the scenes with it\u2014but we\u2019d have deep conversations for hours. That was a regular thing between me and him.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>I always hoped one day I\u2019d do a song with them. We didn\u2019t particularly have it planned, but when we started working on the album and thinking about features, Clipse were the first group that came to mind. We never did anything with them before, so we thought it\u2019d be a dope combination. The Clipse are a group we highly respect. I know Prodigy respected them. We have a lot of admiration for them.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Yeah, it was kind of like that. I wasn\u2019t in the studio with them. Technology is dope like that\u2014but not dope at the same time, you know what I mean? Sometimes you want to be in the studio with the artists and vibe, but schedules conflict. So it\u2019s cool when you can get the verses. When we tapped them for the collab, it was no question. They sent it right away. I really appreciate them for that. And later on, I got on the phone with Pusha and had a real good conversation with him. Shoutout to the Clipse.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>That was a track I had for a while. I\u2019d been trying to get Nas on that song for two years. But Nas is busy\u2014how many albums has he dropped in two years? He had so many. But I never gave up hope on getting him on the song, and eventually, when he had time, he did it.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>No. [Laughs.] That\u2019s a Prodigy move right there. I\u2019m an early bird\u2014I wake up early. But Prodigy, man, he could sleep all day. That was P for you\u2014nocturnal for sure.<\/p>\n
<\/strong> A long time ago. I rarely tour in the States because, for some reason, the fans don\u2019t come out like they do overseas. I see fans get upset, like, \u201cYou\u2019re not performing in the States?\u201d But when we book a tour, it\u2019s like, where you at? When we do Europe, it\u2019s sold out almost every show. But this time around, the enthusiasm seems to be there from the fans\u2019 perspective, so we\u2019re going out.<\/p>\n
<\/strong> In Europe, they\u2019re curators. That\u2019s where all the famous art was made\u2014the Mona Lisa, the classical music\u2014and they still have that today. The artwork, the Louvre. I believe it\u2019s embedded in them, because they did that with jazz music. When jazz musicians felt played out over here, where\u2019d they go? Europe. They treated them like kings. So this isn\u2019t new. Europe\u2019s always been that place where, when the U.S. gets tired of you, they say, \u201cBring us your artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Benny hit me up. He expressed the appetite to do this album, and I was like, \u201cYo, this shit sounds dope.\u201d I hooked up with him, went to his crib\u2014he\u2019s playing all these instruments. I\u2019d sit there and advise him on how to compose. I don\u2019t play many instruments\u2014that\u2019s more his forte\u2014but it was dope.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Hell yeah. One day, you\u2019re definitely going to see that. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve been wanting to do before everybody else did it. Now everybody\u2019s done it, so it\u2019s nothing new\u2014but I had that idea 20 years ago. It\u2019s definitely something coming in the near future.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>Definitely. For sure. That\u2019s definitely in the mix. A Mobb Deep documentary, Havoc documentary\u2014one or the other, for sure.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>The Method Man album\u2019s coming real soon. We call that our COVID album because we\u2019ve been working on it so long. It\u2019s almost done. That\u2019s going to be coming out hopefully by the end of this year, or next year.<\/p>\n