Why Prodigy didn’t believe in therapy: “What are you going to tell me?”
Prodigy is the hip-hop figure that to fans of the genre, needs no introduction.
One half of the rap duo Mobb Deep, alongside Havoc, his personal career, which featured regular collaboration with The Alchemist, is just as notable as that of Mobb Deep. His impact upon the rap game, especially that of the nineties New York scene, cannot be understated: his street lyricism, which relayed with unflinching realism the cold and gritty realities of that world, has come to define not just East Coast rap, but the importance of storytelling in rap.
Examples of the urban underground world Prodigy would relay ranges from references to his upbringing in the Queensbridge housing projects, the street violence that surrounded his childhood and adolescence, drug dealing within a broken system, and the subsequent paranoia and trauma of this life.
In an interview with Electronic Beats in 2014, Prodigy and Havoc sat down to discuss their careers and their lives. And one question the interviewer asks is something that listeners across the world may have thought at some point: “had you guys ever thought about seeing psychologists or going to therapy?” Well, Prodigy had an answer to that. “Hip-hop is our therapy,” he replied.
“I can’t see myself sitting here talking to somebody like, ‘Hi, we’re going through this and this.’ Like, what are you going to tell me? There’s nothing that you could tell me,” he continued. “My experience told me more than what you going to tell me. Going through the bullshit is going to tell me more. I would rather sit down with a beat and get it out, you know what I mean? It’s a stress reliever, man. Word.”
His difficult upbringing wasn’t the only challenge Prodigy has experienced in his life. The legendary rapper and producer had lived with sickle cell disease throughout his life, and has discussed it previously in both interviews and within his music: for example, “You Can Never Feel My Pain”, from his debut studio album, H.N.I.C.
This is something he discussed openly in the interview, too. “I know sickle cell anemia can be a debilitating disease, and when you used to get attacks you would have to go to the hospital and get pain meds,” the interviewer said. “I know you got out of jail in 2011 after doing three-and-a-half years for gun possession. Was it hard to eat healthy with the food they have there?”
“Actually, in jail it was even easier to stay healthy, because every month you get thirty-five pounds of food in a package,” Prodigy explained. “So every month, I would get my wife to send me thirty-five pounds of green vegetables. Everybody else got snacks—Oreos, chips, all types of junk food. But not me. I would eat my package and the jail food, you know what I mean? And I drank mad water.”
Three years after this interview, Prodigy was hospitalised in Las Vegas due to complications related to his sickle cell anaemia. He had been performing with Havoc, Ghostface Killah, Ice-T, KRS-One and Onyx, and had fallen ill during a meet-and-greet with their fans. He sadly passed away two days later from accidental choking. Tributes poured in from across the world from fans and fellow musicians alike, and his funeral in New York was attended by artists including Havoc, 50 Cent, LL Cool J, and Ice-T.