Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy, who died Tuesday at 42, leaves a hip-hop legend behind: “Shook Ones,” the grimy classic he created with partner Havoc, contains one of the most-passionately debated and mysterious samples in music history.
And it only exists because Prodigy stopped Havoc from throwing it out.
When “Shook Ones Part II” debuted in 1995, there was no debate that the Queens duo had devised an instant rap masterpiece, in part thanks to the dense, precise lyrics Prodigy delivered to kick off the song: “I got you stuck off the realness, we be the infamous/You heard of us, official Queensbridge murderers/the Mobb comes equipped for warfare, beware/of my crime family who got ‘nough shots to share.”