Sample Breakdown - The Infamous [1995] | Mobb Deep

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The Infamous (stylized as The Infamous...) is the second studio album by the American hip hop duo Mobb Deep. It was released on April 25, 1995, by Loud Records. The album features guest appearances by Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and Q-Tip. It was largely produced by group member Havoc, with Q-Tip also contributing production while serving as the mixing engineer. Most of the leftover songs from the album became bonus tracks for Mobb Deep's The Infamous Mobb Deep album (2014).

[Background]
During the summer of 1993, Loud Records was looking for another group to sign, owing to the success of Wu-Tang Clan's first single, "Protect Ya Neck", and by fall 1993, the label had signed Mobb Deep.In 1994, the group released the promotional single "Shook Ones", which served as a preview of their new sound.Unlike the duo's first album, The Infamous was mostly self-produced by Havoc and Prodigy, with outside help from Loud A&R representatives Matt Life and Schott Free, as well as A Tribe Called Quest producer Q-Tip, who discovered Mobb Deep in the early 1990s.Matt Life later recalled Q-Tip's involvements, stating, "Tip was very involved in The Infamous from early on. Probably more than people know. Tip was just a fan of theirs and I knew him from way back, so he was really helpful, giving them advice."Q-Tip's contributions to the album were credited under his alias "The Abstract".

[Recording and production]
Recording sessions for The Infamous began in 1994 and took place at Battery Studios, Platinum Island Studios, Firehouse Studios and Unique Recording in New York City.Havoc produced most of the beats in his Queensbridge apartment, with Prodigy often assisting him; earlier in their career, Prodigy taught him how to sample.Describing their minimal production setup, Prodigy said, "Our first sampler we had was an EPS 16 plus ... We had that for a little while, and when the MPC came out we bought that, and that was it. A little record player, a little mixer, and that's all we needed."

Mobb Deep initially recorded 20 songs for The Infamous, but executive producers Matt Life and Schott Free worked with them to improve the music.Matt Life recalled, "Schott worked closely with them on how the rhymes were coming and I worked closely with them on how production was coming. The first thing that I remember is them creating a semblance of the core of the first album and me creating a rough in-house version of what the album could be and throwing a sticker on the cassette."The early rough version of the album contained five or six songs, including the original versions of the album's four singles. The original "Temperature's Rising" was remade because of sample clearance issues.

[Q-Tip's influence]
Later on, Q-Tip became the album's mixing engineer; Matt Life explained, "he came in later in the sessions and said he'd help mix a couple records. And then he ended up picking a couple of records they did to re-do. Except for 'Drink Away the Pain', the songs that Tip produced were already a full song before he got to them. He liked the lyrics on those original songs, but he re-did the beats. It was the same song title, same hook, same rhymes, just new beats." Q-Tip also improved the drum programming on "Survival of the Fittest", "Up North Trip" and "Trife Life". Describing his contributions as "a totally different sound than the Tribe stuff", Q-Tip encouraged Mobb Deep to make their dark sound stand out, by telling them to add major chords to their minor key samples.Havoc later stated, "Q-Tip definitely bent his style a little bit to get with what we was doing. Like with 'Drink Away the Pain' you see him trying to get gangsta with it."Schott Free summed up Q-Tip's influence:

The album was pretty tight, but once Tip comes around he hears different things. He changes kicks, snares, whatever. Also, you get to watch Havoc implement what he had already known with a cat like Tip and Tip showing him everything he knew. Showing him a format, a formula, and even how to double on the kicks. It's just kinda ill how he just came in and just cleaned it up. His influence is mostly sonically. Playing any of those records in the club, the drums and everything is big. Tip was always a master of making a record sound huge.


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