The duo came together when they both enrolled at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. When they first formed, they were the self proclaimed ‘Poetical Prophets’, but changed their name to Mobb Deep to “reflect their reputation on the streets”.
Their reputation began to grow when they found success with their second album, “The Infamous” which was released on April 25th 1995. The album was described as a narration of street life, and it was the single “Shook Ones Pt. II” that received positive critical acclaim within the hip-hop community. With a career that was growing exponentially, Mobb Deep’s third album, entitled “Hell on Earth”, released on November 19th 2006, on Loud, RCA and BMG Records that climbed into the Billboard 200 and reached a peak position of #6. The two singles from the album “Front Lines (Hell on Earth)” and “G.O.D Pt. III” made it to 13 and 18 in the Hot Rap Singles Chart.
Mobb Deep were on the front line of the East Coast vs West Coast hip-hop rivalry, which was of course promoted by the media. It began when Snoop Dogg and the West Coast group, The Dogg Pound released “New York, New York”, to which Mobb Deep alongside Capone-N-Noreaga and Tragedy Khadafi lashed back with “L.A L.A”.
They released the album “Infamy in 2001, which was a step in another direction musically diverting away from the raw and stripped-down sound. With change, comes criticism, especially fans claiming that their favourite act have sold out. Their career would go on to earn a place in the video game “Grand Theft Auto IV”. With a new label signing on 50 Cent’s G-Unit Recrods, they released their seventh studio album “Blood Money” on May 2nd 2006. The album features guest appearances from Nate Dogg and Mary J.Blige.
On April 1st 2014, the hip-hop duo released their eighth studio album, “The Infamous Mobb Deep". The album features guest appearances from Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg and Juicy J.
If you’ve ever fallen into the trap of thinking that modern hip hop, primarily concerned with nauseating levels of materialism, is representative of the genre as a whole, you perhaps haven’t heard one of the finest tracks of the nineties, Mobb Deep’s ‘Shook Ones (Part II)’. Over one of the most iconic beats ever made, - foreboding, sinister and unremittingly menacing - Prodigy and Havoc spin a genuinely bleak tale of life in Queensbridge as a youth, where they’re engaged in gang warfare. When Nas did the same, in the same year, on Illmatic, he approached the subject in a manner that laced it with his own ambitions; Mobb Deep, though, offer no such respite across their classic debut LP, The Infamous. After a rocky past few years, which saw Prodigy jailed for gun possession and then feuding with Havoc upon his release, the pair have reconciled and toured Europe this summer, although the UK was conspicuous by its absence from the touring schedule. Twenty years on from their breakthrough, they still display an uncanny understanding of each other’s flow, and their onstage interplay is superb, more than making up for the lack of a live band. With their first studio record in eight years, The Infamous Mobb Deep, dropping earlier this year, it can’t be long until they do make a long-overdue return to British shores - don’t sleep on it when it happens.