Prodigy

Intellectuals that read a lot of books might not have been interested in Mobb Deep before 'My Infamous Life,' but now they might go, 'Who are these guys?' and check us out.

Sickle cell was my life before hip-hop. I ain't really have no life - that was it.

Hip-hop music was our life.

You have people there from all walks of life: people who made mistakes and have to deal with the consequences, mothers and fathers. You wouldn't expect them to be behind bars.

I was a very serious child who never got to enjoy life to the fullest like a normal, healthy kid.

That's what 'Hell On Earth' was about: we felt that we were living in hell.

I think the sound of 'The Infamous' came naturally from our lifestyle and some of the criminal things we were doing. We always rap about what we're living, and to put a beat to lyrics like those is hard.

Hip-hop basically controls the world through fashion, through music, through language, through culture. It's basically running the world, no matter what anyone wants to think, and that's just the way it is.

I have a deadly disease called Sickle Cell Anemia that I was born with that affects millions of others - primarily in the Black and Latino cultures. I feel I can inspire others with this Sickle Cell disease to be strong and believe in themselves.

In the beginning, we might have been focused on totally just music and being famous, just wanting to have fame and make hot music, but as we got older, we had to understand that this is a business and that our moves need to be calculated.

We gotta keep our sound alive, that dark hip-hop.

You have to find a sound that reflects what our souls feel like inside, how our bodies actually feel. That's why we made our own beats. We couldn't find a producer who could give us the feeling to match our lyrics.