At every radio interview, Havoc and P found themselves answering questions about Havoc's Queensbridge neighbor Nas. Johnson and Muchita had already gotten their shot, releasing a corny, forgettable debut called Juvenile Hell in 1993 that sold 20,000 copies before being dwarfed by Illmatic, which had already traveled the world as a demo before its official release in April of '94. The song was a rebirth, and the album that it foreshadowed would rewrite their legacy entirely. II" is maybe the most effective, and certainly the most devastating. It announced The Infamous, Mobb Deep's second album and their first classic, and in the canon of career-revitalizing rap singles-Kool Moe Dee's "How Ya Like Me Now", LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out", Dre's "Still D.R.E."-"Shook Ones Pt.
Playing the sample back to back with its source does absolutely nothing to resolve the mystery of "Shook Ones Pt II."įor the kids who made it-Albert "Prodigy" Johnson, from Hempstead, and Kejuan "Havoc" Muchita, from Queensbridge-"Shook Ones Pt. The line is so disorienting that it inspired a sixteen-year long hunt for its source, which only ended in 2011 when producer Havoc confessed that sample snitches had finally pinpointed their target – a three-second piece of a Herbie Hancock instrumental, sped up and then slowed down. An even stranger sound follows it: four notes played on either a guitar imitating a piano or a piano imitating a guitar. But it also might be an exploding steam pipe, or a car alarm, or a laser-jet printer. II" is one of rap's most perfect sounds-but what is it? It might be a horn. The foreboding, faraway skree announcing Mobb Deep's "Shook Ones Pt.