Credit: TIDAL

The Alchemist and Prodigy formed one of the best rapper-producer duos in rap music prior to the Mobb Deep member’s death. The pair combined for two collaborative albums, Return of the Mac in 2007 and Albert Einstein in 2013, as well as one of Prodigy’s biggest tracks, ‘Keep It Thoro’, taken from his debut solo album H.N.I.C. The producer also contributed to every Mobb Deep album after 1996’s Murda Muzik.

With this in mind, it’s no wonder The Alchemist considers Prodigy to be the greatest rapper of all time. During an interview with Complex, the producer stated that, in his opinion, nobody is better than the New York native.

“I’m going clean sweep, man. Prodigy, across the map,” he said. “That’s my greatest rapper of all time. Broke rules. You know, Nas, of course. It was always Nas or P. But I used to always tell Big Twin, we would talk about it. P used to break rules.”

The Alchemist then recited ‘Survival of the Fittest’, rapping, “’There’s a war goin’ on outside no man is safe from/ You could run, but you can’t hide forever/ From these streets that we done took/ You walkin’ with your head down, scared to look.’ Nothing rhymed. The whole first four bars was not one word rhyming.”

He added, “He used to just come out of his face, broke rules, vocal tone, writing. His voice. Listen to a song like ‘Gun Love’, a perfectly written song. Greatest rapper, I don’t wanna hear it.”

‘Survival of the Fittest’ appeared on Mobb Deep’s classic 1995 album The Infamous, which featured the likes of Nas, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah and Q-Tip. ‘Gun Love’ is an unreleased track from Prodigy as a solo artist.

During a 2013 interview, Prodigy reflected on working with The Alchemist for the first time. Together with Havoc as half of Mobb Deep, he collaborated with Alc on a track called ‘The Realness’ that also featured the great Kool G Rap.

“On Murda Muzik, he did the song with Kool G Rap, ‘The Realness’,” he said. “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 [N-word]. He was in the same vein as the music we make.”

Prodigy passed away in 2017 after being hospitalised in Las Vegas due to complications with sickle cell anaemia. However, the cause of death was later confirmed as accidental choking. Five years after Prodigy’s death, The Alchemist shared a tribute on X (formerly known as Twitter), promising him that “the legacy will continue.”

Together, they helped pave the way for a whole crop of new MCs, with Alc being better than most at working with the freshest rappers in the industry.