For those dwelling under rocks, veteran hip-hop duo Mobb Deep dropped their eightth studio album this morning, that being The Infamous Mobb Deep. It's their first collaborative project since 2006's Blood Money, their only G-Unit Records release.
Prodigy and Havoc recently sat down with Complex and Rik Cordero at New York City's historic Chung King Studios and broke down the creation of several tracks from the album. They discuss working with Alchemist on "Waterboarding", their sampling of The Notorious B.I.G. on "All A Dream" and Havoc's collaborations with Boi-1da on several tracks.
Read excerpts below.
Prodigy On "All A Dream":
"I had come up with the chorus - 'woke up, and I was still living it' ... My man was like, 'you should put Biggie in there, 'it was all a dream''. So we tried it out, [saw] how it [sounded]. So Om'Mas Keith, who had produced the beat, he starting messing around with the sample and it actually sounded good. We ended up keeping it, it went along with the chorus I was saying."
Prodigy On "Waterboarding":
"When we made the song 'Waterboarding', the title and everything, I think Al, after he heard what the title was, he went in and tried to find things from waterboarding so he could put it on the song ... Alchemist is an alien. He's not from this earth. He's just incredible. He's such an inspiration. It's like he created his own style, his own brand. That's The Alchemist now. We made a lot a nice little records here and there, as Al would say."
Havoc On "Legendary":
"Boi-1da had reached out to me through Twitter and had mentioned to me that I inspired him ... One thing led to the next, we started sending tracks to each other, back and forth. Once I had that track solidified, [I] let P hear it and P just took it in that direction of legendary status kind of thing, and he just made it pop off. Of course it's called 'Legendary', who could we get on there, some legends: Juicy J, Bun B. And it was a wrap ... I like sharing production on albums with other producers 'cause I'm a fan" ... "It would be self-centered to just try do the whole thing by myself."
Prodigy on "Taking You Off Here":
"I came to the studio and Hav had his verse done on that song already ... and I was just like, 'whoa, this is crazy right here'. I just went in and wrote my verse and that was that. It could be a brand new beat that Hav just put up, I'll go sit in that corner, Hav go sit in this corner, I don't know what he saying, he don’t know what I'm saying. Then when we get on the mic, it just fits."
Prodigy On "My Block":
"It comes a certain time when you can't just be on the block chilling no more ... I came up with an idea to just write about being on the block and I told Hav real quick 'just write about the block', he was like, 'alright, bet' ... Once we became successful with the music and started touring a lot, there was like really no time for us to be going around to the neighborhoods 'cause we had work. Back in the days when we was young kids, coming up on the rise, trying to be successful with our music, we on the block every day 'cause we had nothing else to do, really. We just on the block chilling, living our life. But it comes a certain time where you can't just be on the block chilling no more."
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Word. Watch the full interview here, peep the official cover art in the gallery above and cop the project on iTunes.
[Via HipHopDX]
