Prodigy of Mobb Deep "Mac 10 Handle"
from The Return of the Mac mixtape (2006)

Applaud Nas for Hip-Hop is Dead if you want, but Prodigy is about to make the comeback of the year. Not like you should care since Esco has been the only relevant Queens rapper for the past four years. Finally, the real Prodigy keeps it thorough for a full song, and not just to piss off Jesus freaks with another “Pearly Gates” verse.

Maybe getting bagged with Alchemist on weapons charges lit the fire under P. It's about time for P, who’s been responsible for some of rap’s most dark, twisted lyrics. Since getting bodied by Jay-Z on “Takeover,” I've been expecting P to channel his Napoleon complex into a tough response. On Infamy, he showed a glimmer of promise. The album cover, in fact, spoke volumes—Havoc and Prodigy pictured in darkness (good), yet surrounded by crickets (bad). A week later, Nas ethers Hov and Prodigy with the release of "Destroy & Rebuild" from Stillmatic. I would have felt sorry for the little guy, but he just kept on stacking the bricks against himself.

Now more claustrophobic than ever, perhaps stifled by his G-Unit riches, P steps his rap game up on the forthcoming mixtape, Return of the Mac. Maybe when your career begins to fade, Mark Morrison begins to play in your head. Morrison had his run-ins with the law too, kids.

Call it the greatest rap performance in a video yet because the last time I checked, heavy drinking and drug usage affects paranoid P’s Sickle-Cell anemia. Still, I’m convinced, even if he is chugging apple juice. Besides, anytime a rapper sits in a four-cornered room, stares at candles, and bites Scarface we listen. Oh Juelz, you made it a hot line, Prodigy made it a hot song.

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