Prodigy announced in November that he would be teaming up with past collaborator, producer The Alchemist, for a new album titled Albert Einstein.
Since the brief announcement, he's remained relatively quiet about the project, but in a recent interview with Complex, he sheds some light on it. P explains that this project, like Return of the Mac, will have a fleshed out concept. The rapper also speaks on his past history with The Alchemist.
You also have a project with Alchemist. We're used to you working with him, but what was it like getting together again?
The last one we did together was Return of the Mac, so we figured it was about time to go ahead and do the next one. That was our first project together and it did real good. It had a nice little concept. The concept was it had a blaxploitation '70’s feel to the album. So this new one that we doing, once again there’s gonna be a concept. And we gonna surprise people with what it is this time, but it's basically the same type of thing, though. Al doing all the beats and I’m just going in and painting a picture of what the whole thing is gonna be.
What was it like when you started working with him?
On Murda Muzik he did the song with Kool G Rap, “The Realness.” So we did that and that was the first time that I was like, "Wow! This kid is ill. He can make beats." So we recorded that song the day I heard that beat with Kool G Rap on it. I heard a bunch of other beats, too. I probably heard “Keep It Thoro” that same day but it didn’t come out til a year later. I knew that Al was that nigga. He was in the same vein as the music we make.
The Mobb Deep member also speaks on current New York rappers, check out that excerpt below.
Speaking of New York artists, do you keep up with the young blood in New York?
Yeah, I like what they doing. I like new rap music. I’m a fan of hip-hop. I’m a fan of rap so anything new that's happening, I’m hip to it. I’m already on to it. I’m checking out what’s on the Internet, mixtapes, all that. I’m usually ahead of the curve before it gets popular.
I definitely love what A$AP doing. I really like Bada$$, he’s real dope. It’s a bunch of artists, man. I definitely support the new rappers because they got something new to bring to the table. You can’t keep doing the same old shit. It gets boring. So it’s good to have a whole bunch of choices, 'cause too much of the new shit get boring and you want to hear something else, too. So you gotta have different things.
Prodigy goes on to discuss Chris Lighty, his book, where he stands with the other half of Mobb Deep, Havoc, and more. Head here to read the full interview.