Prodigy of Mobb Deep

Albert Johnson (November 2, 1974 - June 20, 2017), better known by his stage name Prodigy, was a member of the hip hop duo Mobb Deep. Prodigy was born to parents of Ethiopian and Jamaican descent, and was also born with sickle cell anemia, which he had suffered from throughout his life. Propelled to awareness partially by fellow Queens, New York rapper Nas, who took a similar approach lyrically on his championed “Illmatic” album from 1994, as well as with the aid of a successful single, “Shook Ones Pt. 2,” Mobb Deep suddenly found themselves developing a quickly growing cult, especially after releasing their second album The Infamous in 1995. A year later, in 1996, Prodigy and Havoc released “Hell on Earth”; debuting at number six on SoundScan, the album found them fully realizing their approach, dropping both evocative beats and cinematic rhymes that communicated the dark side of New York’s urban landscape. Thanks to a grim video for “Hell on Earth (Front Lines)” and theatrical Scarface-like photos inside the CD booklet picturing the duo with guns and a mound of cocaine, Mobb Deep had created an elaborate image for themselves that took hardcore gangsta rap to a new level for east coast hip hop. Their next release, “Murda Muzik”, was heavily bootlegged while still in its demo stage, leaking rough versions of the nearly 30 songs the duo had recorded onto the streets and over the internet. Prodigy died on June 20, 2017, to sickle cell anemia complications Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.