The Infamous
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend With one album--no, one song ("Shook Ones, Pt. 2")--Mobb Deep went from gimmick kiddie rap duo to hip-hop's dark horsemen of the apocalypse. Gritty and nihilistic, Prodigy and Havoc ushered in a post-gangsta era of reality rap that privileged vivid street narratives over mere drive-by posturing. As well, production by themselves and guests like Q-Tip (who did the jazzy "Drink Away the Pain") kept the soundscape moving… Product details and pricing info |
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153 Customer Reviews Posted
- Mobb Deep is the truth!!
- this album is as good as it gets!!! you cant go wrong with classic Mobb Deep...its an easy reminder of how good Hip-Hop used to be....this album is on heavy rotation in my car!!!
- 2007-12-09, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The Mobb
- What is sometimes recognized as their first LP, sophmore release The Infamous brought a grittier East Coast feel for its time. Perfectly titled "The Start Of Your Ending (41st Side)" to lead the album off with a simple track accompanied by sound effects to add to the thugged lyrical assault by the duo. Simple deep piano chords with uptempo hard kicks synchronized the street mentality attitude for "Survival Of The Fittest". Slowing down with a dark, deeper mystique of "Eye For A Eye (Your Beef Is Mine)" featuring Nas & Raekwon collaborated to enlighten on the retaliation as does "Right Back At You" featuring Ghostface Killer, Raekwon & Big Noyd goes for a reapeat over looping bass guitar and decending chords. "[Just Step Prelude] " is an accapella interlude with verses from Big Noyd and Prodigy added to the concept and the lifestyle of the Mobb. The upbeat "Give Up The Goods (Just Step)" featuring Big Noyd is a great addition with layered arrangement with violent crime content "...brothers are starvin' from tryin' to find a job / son, its all about robbin'..." "Temperature's Rising" featuring Crystal Johnson is one of the mainstream attemps with a hint of a bounce smoothed out as Mobb Deep kept their street formula. Staying on the same tempo but switching gears on "Up North Trip" as they give tales of going to jail. "Trife Life" shows the street mentality of keeping your eyes on your enemies and being aware of a set up or robbery. Representing their homeground Queensbridge on "Q.U.-Hectic" over simple production arrangement. Highlighted by deep bass on "Cradle To The Grave" is a canvas for the stories told of survival. The jazz influenced "Drink Away The Pain (Situations)" featuring Q-Tip by the horn arrangement as they exchanged liquor for women as the yin-yang combination meshed well. The classic "Shook Ones Pt. II" is a near East Coast anthem with delivery, off-key patterns also provided quotables. Three of the sixteen was produced by The Abstract a.k.a. Q-Tip as the remainder was produced by the group showing how the acronym k-i-s-s (keep it simple stupid) worked perfectly as a signature sound and style. Mobb Deep's performance and overall concept of The Infamous is a hip-hop/rap classic and essential for any collection of for this genre.
- 2007-11-16, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The one album that's perfect in every way...
- It really is; I don't think anything can top this album. The lyricism, and flows are exuberant and the production is HAUNTING. If you want an album that portrays the hardships of life in the City, there's nothing better to go to than "The Infamous" by Mobb Deep. If you listen to this album, it's almost unbelievable to think that this is the same Mobb Deep that's currently in G-Unit. The same Mobb Deep that now makes commercial, club-themed anthems. But back then, they were so different. So real, so hardcore, so raw. Listening to this album gives me such extreme visuals; you'll feel like you're in the midst of the street-poetry that Prodigy and Havoc display all throughout. I could go through the tracks...Survival of the Fittest (personal favorite), Eye For a Eye, The Start of Your Ending, Right Back at You, Give It Up Fast...but why bother? Pretty much every song is incredible. This album is beyond a masterpiece. This album is perfection...
- 2007-11-13, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Unparalleled Classic
- Mobb Deep's 2nd album is hands down an essential to the East Coast hip-hop scene. Havoc and Prodigy both had excellent flow and lyrical content that tells some bitter stories, and the background beats are some of the most original and dark beats to ever grace the hip-hop scene. Each track, even the preludes, holds its own and stands out well. An album to not be avoided.
- 2007-10-05, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- The High Water Mark of East Coast Gangster Rap and Probably Rap Music in General
- Though, as we've all found out, Prodigy and Havoc have been less than honest about their backgrounds (big suprise for post-1992 rappers) this somehow, miraculously actually, remains one of the most honest and introspective rap albums ever produced.
The real genius of Mobb Deep in my opinion is that they don't demand to be understood, they don't beg for sympathy, they don't pretend to put out a message that is any different then what they're actually putting out. Give them credit for that at least because if nothing else they're one of the few rap groups, shoot, one of a handfull of ENTERTAINERS PERIOD, that don't try and pass off what is truthfully extremely vile material as a cry for help.
You see the infinite danger inherent in a Tupac album is that it's a ganster rap album in every sense of the word but it's masquerading as something else. It's dangerous because the public is prone to accept practically anything that is marketed to them correctly. More precisely though, its dangerous because it pretends to be genuine social criticism, it pretends to be sincere, it pretends to be sensitive. Sure that's repulsively dishonest, but really when you get down to the bottom of it it's downright pathological. But then again that's how deeply socialism has infected the culture, when a guy can put out an album about killing innocent people and not only receive applause for it, but also demand to be seen as a sensitive, intelligent and compasionate individual as well. (I just love the superficiality of Tupac's videos what with him begging the camera to love him and the unexplained babies popping up all over the place among other things.)
Tupac and most of the rest are champions, poster children if you will, of the "product-of-my-environment" culture of responsibility to no one that is today's new orthodoxy, not just for blacks, not just for the inner-city, not just for the poor, but for everyone. However offended you might be by Mobb Deep they never contributed to the current state of things and for that I will always love them.
Just look at the way they act. Even though their music has become utter trash for the most part since 2001 they haven't lost sight of their mission. They're a group that just begs for you to hate them and I don't necessarily have a problem with that because that type of behavior can be contained, isolated and prevented from infecting the rest of the populace.
As for the album it is quite incredible. Some of this stuff should be able to appeal to everyone but to be truthful there is quite alot on here that probably isn't going to be too intriguing for anyone that is not a sincere fan of rap music. Nobody was sampling like Havoc was in the mid-90's, not RZA, not nobody. These are some of the freshest and most original samples you will find on any rap album. This was made back when New York City still had that dark underbelly, before Giulliani came in and ruined it all by turning it into a densely populated version of Disney Land. "Cradle to the Grave" is a wonderfully erie song that reflects that time period and that state of mind. I honestly think this is better in many ways then the better known material released by Wu, Nas, etc.
Me personally? I'm torn as to whether records like these make me a terrible (or a progressively worse) person for listening to them. I trust myself enough to listen to it responsibly though the possibility exists that I could be extremely wrong on this. Not extremely wrong about listening to JUST Mobb Deep, but wrong for not sealing myself off in a storm bunker to try to insulate myself from the culture of trash that WE ALL live in.
Either way this entire album is able to transcend the usual cliches of rap and pop music in an original way. However miniscule an accomplishment that may be it is still an accomplishment. - 2007-08-25, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
