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For those of you joining us late, you can catch part one of our book review covering Chapters 1 - 3 over here.
While the first few chapters of the book left me wondering whether my $25 could have been spent more wisely than on a grammatically challenged autobiography, chapters four through six of Prodigy's My Infamous Life really picked up steam. The music nerd in me would have liked to read more about everything that went into recording their albums, but it's hard to complain about a book that manages to fit a story about boxcutters onto nearly every page. Without exaggeration, I don't believe there was a stretch of more than five pages in the following three chapters that went by without Prodigy discussing someone having their face slit with a razor. In any event, let's get on with our blogger Cliff's Notes for chapters 4 - 6:
The highlights:
- Prodigy's mom decided to stop working as her son's manager on the advice of her psychic Brenda Dash, the aunt of Stacey and Damon Dash.
- His first encounter with Busta Rhymes came while he was in the crowd at a Leaders of the New School concert. Busta was throwing promo cassettes into the audience and pegged Prodigy in the forehead with one of them.
- Days after the Colin Ferguson shooting on the Long Island Rail Road, Prodigy's friend stuck up passengers on the LIRR by pretending his finger was a gun. The incident made the front page of the Daily News after the two of them were arrested.
- After Infamous was released, a long-bearded white man carrying a Bible showed up in Queensbridge to tell Prodigy that he was an angel and that passages in the Book of Revelation were about him.
- Violator CEO Chris Lighty, at the time working the door at The Tunnel, would help Mobb Deep sneak "book bags full of knives, shanks, screwdrivers, guns, plus other sharp and blunt objects" into the club.
- Mobb Deep had beef at one point with The Lost Boyz, after Prodigy kicked one of the girls from the LB crew off the stage during a joint performance in Manhattan. After the show they got into a fight in front of the 23rd Street train station, in which several Lost Boyz were stabbed. Mobb Deep was banned from performing in Manhattan for the next two years as a result.
- Nutcracker of Group Home was, in all likelihood, certifiably insane. During one recording session with DJ Premier, Nutcracker defecated on the carpet.
- Furthermore in regards to Nutcracker: "One of Premier's friends told me that one day Premier let Nutcracker use his car and he brought it back crashed up pretty bad. When he had to face Primo and show him the crashed car, it hurt him so much that he pulled out a nine-millimeter and shot himself in the foot to show Premier how sorry he was."
- During a confrontation with Marley Marl in Queensbridge, after Havoc found out that Marl was sleeping with his girlfriend, N.O.R.E. pulled out a gun to stop the fight. The gun went off and hit one of Mobb Deep's crew members in the leg. NORE "ran for his life out of the projects."
- Shortly after that, Mobb Deep jumped NORE after a CNN show. "While NORE was getting jumped, his boys Tragedy and Capone didn't move. They just stood in front of the club watching the whole thing."
- According to Prodigy, CNN's Capone testified against Havoc's brother Killer Black. Capone gave false testimony which led to Killer being acquitted, though it's unclear if Capone was truly snitching or if he lied intentionally to help Killer escape conviction.
- Prodigy is a big fan of Dr. York and Nuwaubianism. More on that in the quotes section below.
- Back when DJ Clue was putting out mixtapes, he was able to get Mobb Deep exclusives by having their engineer Duro leak him songs from their new albums.
- Killer Black survived a bullet wound to the head. Because of outstanding warrants he couldn't go to the hospital, so he ended up picking the bullet out of his head on his own.
- Killer Black eventually committed suicide, after a night of smoking dust with Tragedy.
- Puffy allegedly stole one of Havoc's beats for Black Rob's "I Love You Baby."
- At one point after the release of Hell on Earth, Prodigy kidnapped two hookers from their pimp and began pimping them himself. He gave up on being a pimp after two months.
Best quotes:
- On Havoc's brother TJ: "We gave him the name Killer Black. He would shoot people in a heartbeat. We couldn't bring Killer to industry functions because he might murder somebody."
- Discussing a brawl that broke out during a yacht cruise sponsored by Puffy and The Hitmen: "Capone [not the Capone of CNN fame] walked straight up to the dude and cut him across his left cheek for no reason with a little Gemstar box-cutter razor. Nitty and Money No dropped a giant flowerpot on his head and kicked him into the Hudson River."
- On his reaction to the infamous Death Row performance at the Source Awards: "After the song, Snoop Dogg started screaming on the mic, 'New York ain't got love for Death Row?' I sat there wondering, what the fuck is he talking about? He was really feeling himself because of all the money and power they were displaying onstage. All the whoopin' and hollerin' made Snoop look stupid."
- On the birth of his first child: "The Dr. York books I was reading spoke about how hospitals inject babies, especially black babies, with microchips and diseases at birth when they vaccinate them. I was going to refuse the shots, but I let [the nurses] do their job and kept a close eye on every move they made."
- On being asked to do a verse with Biggie: "I don't wanna do a song with Biggie, he's corny." (Though Prodigy later admits that he became a fan of Big's after hearing Last Day.)
- On seeing Keith Murray at the Tunnel one night, after their confrontation over the "crazy space shit" skit on Infamous: "We had so many weapons we would've killed the boy, and it wasn't my style anymore to take advantage of a weak, defenseless person." They eventually did get into a fight outside the club, which was broken up by police. "Keith Murray must have felt death down that dark street. When he saw that squad car coming, it must have been like Jesus Christ coming to save him."
Chapters 7 - 9 coming next week. In the meantime, you can pick up a copy of Prodigy's My Infamous Life over on amazon.
5/4/2011 6:30:00 PM posted by Fresh