Two featured guests on Prodigy’s upcoming H.N.I.C. 3 album may throw some of his more hardened fans for a loop—T.I. and Wiz Khalifa.

Prodigy recently told XXLMag.com how the collaboration with Tip came about and why people shouldn’t be surprised to hear him and Wiz work together.

“When we were locked up, we were in contact with each other, so when we both came home, we had reached out and was like, ‘Let’s get this work done,’” P started explaining about the T.I. collaboration, ‘What’s Happening,’ on which the King is featured on and produced. “I think I told him, ‘Give me your email, I’m going to send you some joints’ and he was like, ‘Yo, check this out, I make beats.’

“He said, ‘You might want to listen to some of my joints, you might like something,’” P added. “I was like, ‘Hell yeah, send that.’ So, the first joint he sent over was just incredible. He had put a chorus on it already and the beat was crazy. It don’t even sound like a South beat or New York beat. You can’t pinpoint where this beat came from. It was just good music, so I was like, ‘Yeah, this is dope right here.’”

As for Wiz, who collaborated with Prodigy on “Co-Pilot,” one-half of Mobb Deep wants fans to know that Khalifa is as thorough as he is.

“To me Wiz is a street artist,” P shared. “He’s from the hood. Some people might not agree with that. A lot of them tend to hate on the young artists. I don’t agree with that. I’m trying to show love, spread my wings and fly, man. Word!”

H.N.I.C. 3 is slated for a July 3rd release.—Mark Lelinwalla with additional reporting by Carl Chery

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