In the mid-1990s, New York City was in the midst of a major hip-hop resurgence. As the West Coast had taken hold of the mainstream circa 1992, New York had answered with a new generation of hardcore emcees and producers that led the East raging back to prominence.
Amongst the rarefied emceeing of Nas, the slick street appeal of Bad Boy and the cultural movement that was Wu-Tang, a duo of young rhymers out of the Queensbridge projects delivered an album that was unapologetically dark, unflinchingly nihilistic and undeniably real.
Mobb Deep’s second album The Infamous set the rap world ablaze in 1995, with barely-out-of-their-teens rappers Prodigy and Havoc hailed as dark storytellers with a penchant for murky, melodic odes to street life.
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