Mobb Deep have
a retort for those those fans that thought the group’s G-Unit affiliation would
compromise their self-proclaimed "murda musik."
The group’s upcoming
album, Blood Money, features 50 Cent and many acts like Lloyd Banks,
Young Buck and Tony Yayo, but Prodigy and Havoc say their style prevails on
the opus.
"Basically,
to the people that thought [it wouldn’t be a true Mobb Deep album], when they
hear this, I just want to stamp on their head, ‘I told you.’" Havoc told
AllHipHop.com.
"Mobb Deep
isn’t gonna change and when we first got here 50 was like, ‘Listen, I want y’all
to keep doing what you been doing. That’s it,’" Havoc continued. "We
didn’t want to change and 50 didn’t want to change us. Now everybody is gonna
hear the Mobb sound, not just our core audience. They are gonna say, ‘Oh, this
is why these mother f***ers been around for 10 or something years.’"
The pair did admit
that 50 Cent did bear some influence on the sound of the album, in addition
to having several guest appearances.
Rapper Prodigy
said, "Basically, we did like half the album when he was shooting Get Rich
or Die Tryin’ [and recorded] some of it while we were on tour. It was a 50/50
[effort] basically."
At a New York concert
in August of 2004, M.O.P. and Mobb Deep announced they intended to release a
M.O.P./ Mobb Deep joint album.
Despite the goal,
Havoc revealed why the Mash Out Posse, also G-Unit brethren, don’t appear on
Blood Money.
"We were just
been so busy. When we was on the tour together, you got five different artists
trying to get in the studio at one time. Everybody was basically doing them
and we didn’t get the chance to actually do a song with M.O.P. We wanted to.
In the future, we definitely are going to do a song with M.O.P. And definitely,
we got
the [conceptual M.O.P./Mobb Deep] album in mind. It would be crazy."
With the album,
they didn’t want to alienate their faithful fans, but admitted to the desire
to expand their audience.
"We didn’t
want to make this a compilation. Those are enough artists for now. I wish we
could have had more of G-Unit on there. This is our introduction," the
Queens producer rapper explained. "You’re gonna hear collaborations with
all the G-Unit artists at some point, whether is MOP and Ma$e- whatever. We
just couldn’t fit it in the album."
In addition to
G-Unit, Blood Money features production from Alchemist, Havoc, Sha Money
XL, Dr. Dre and a plethora of upcoming producers. The album is expected to hit
stores on March 21.
