Beauty ain't always a little, cute colored flower. Beauty is anything where people be like, 'Damn.'
Prodigy
When my family first moved to Hempstead in the 1960s, they were one of the first black families. It used to be an all-white neighborhood, but there was white flight when the black people with money started moving in. When I was, like, 13 or 14, Hempstead had just become all black, and the poverty became worse and worse.
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.
Our style of hip-hop, our style of beats, our style of rhymes - you gonna give us burn. We gonna get our burn that we deserve.
A sickle-cell attack would creep up slowly in my ankles, legs, arms, back, stomach, and chest. Sometimes my lips and tongue turned numb, and I knew I was going into a crisis.
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.
Going to prison actually helped save my life, I believe.
Obama represents one-world government, a.k.a. Neocolonialism. Presidents don't change anything locally - they only deal with foreign policy.
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.
To me, I got a bunch of haters. Mobb Deep - and Prodigy, speaking for myself - I got a bunch of haters.
When I was a kid, I used to love to play 'Dig Dug.' It was, like, this little dude, where he digs in the dirt and makes tunnels.
My favorite Eminem song is probably 'Lose Yourself' because I can relate to it a lot. That's how I feel every time I write a rhyme.
I'm a big fan of Kurt Cobain. I put a picture of him holding a gun on my Instagram for his birthday. He's definitely one of my favorite rock artists.
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.
You have to find a sound that reflects what our souls feel like inside, how our bodies actually feel. That's why we made our own beats. We couldn't find a producer who could give us the feeling to match our lyrics.
Nobody's unique. Everybody copies off of each other. Everybody wears the same type of stuff. Nobody's an individual anymore.
When I said, 'I'm only 19, but my mind is old' - at that time, when I said that line, I was 18.
Just having conversations with God, begging God to make the pain go away, and then the pain wouldn't go away. So I'm like 'Who the hell am I talking to? God is not responding.'
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.
I don't want fans anymore, because the definition of a fan is a fanatic. The people who buy my product and ride with me are my supporters, not fanatics.
I have a deadly disease called Sickle Cell Anemia that I was born with that affects millions of others - primarily in the Black and Latino cultures. I feel I can inspire others with this Sickle Cell disease to be strong and believe in themselves.
People of all races need to come together to control our government and run a giant comb through it so we can see the filth that comes out.
Sickle cell was my life before hip-hop. I ain't really have no life - that was it.
Once I started writing, I realized just how much I really enjoyed it. I was kinda good at it, so I kept at it.
The music is just real powerful when Mobb Deep and Nas work together.
Mobb Deep's music, we represent poverty. That's what made us. That's who made us. That's who brought us up.
You gotta be careful and just learn from your mistakes.
The NYPD is just a branch of corruption connected to a giant, corrupt tree called the United States government.
We used to cut out of school and go to Coney Island to record songs almost every day.
I just remember the feeling of being dropped from Island and having our hearts broken. Because we were given a chance to put out an album to the world. We got the chance for people to know who we were. We wanted to make our dreams come true and do hip-hop for a living, but we didn't do it right.
All I do is music; that's my sport.
With Mobb Deep, we have to agree on things. We have to agree that we want to use that beat or agree on the type of song we want to do.
I'm a fan of hip-hop. I'm a fan of rap, so anything new that's happening, I'm hip to it.
When I was locked up, I went through a big personal change with my attitude and spiritual, everything. I went through some major changes locked up.
In the era we came up in, you had to have your own thing.
Don't get 'Return of The Mac' confused as a solo album. That was just a mixtape.
Going to jail is beyond what anyone thinks it is.
Growing up in bad neighborhoods, you see and experience a lot.
Extreme pain to extreme pleasure has been the story of my entire life.
Premier came into the picture when were starting to make our own beats and all that.
In my lyrics, I used to always state two years ahead. I did that to make it seem like we were ahead of our time - a time capsule almost. It had never been done before.
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.
I was real serious when it came to rapping. I still do, but even more so when I was real young.
You can never go back to a time and try to recreate that sound, because that time is done.
I'm always vocal about people being unique and different in hip-hop.
You got to treat Mobb Deep different because our fan base is different. Our fan base is in the 'hood across the world.
'Cobra Clutch' was to let the world know we ain't going nowhere. We got the game in the cobra clutch.
When we first signed to Loud, we had a 20-song demo. So all of those songs we wanted to put on the album. But we started making new ones, and through process of elimination, we wanted all the new ones. We didn't like the old ones no more.
Anything that Havoc or I do is always going to point back to Mobb Deep.
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.
