In 1995, the US was at war with itself—at least according to Mobb Deep. Raised in the Queensbridge projects across the East River from Manhattan, art-school students Havoc and Prodigy watched their surroundings devolve into violence they likened to Vietnam. While neither fought overseas or studied history, their bold assertion was backed up by teenage years packed with more violence than many troops see in a deployment. Trapped in never-ending gunfights, while their brothers lost lives, the duo produced The Infamous: New York’s 16-track equivalent of The Terror of War.

While the drug and crime dystopia that was the Queensbridge Projects may no longer exist, twenty-five years later, the album’s raw lyrical delivery over simple but intense sampled beats garners just as much respect as it did on release. Pitchfork, the most famous online music review publication, recognized this impact by giving The Infamous 10.0/10.0—a score reserved for just 130 of 30,000 albums ever reviewed. The Infamous’ perfect marks are justified in a corresponding 2014 Pitchfork article by Jayson Greene, which accurately places the album amongst other contemporary East Coast rap, with a sprinkling of stories about The Infamous’ production.

However, this comparison to other musicians is also Greene’s largest mistake; lost amongst his Wu-Tang Clan references and Q-Tip close reading, Greene silos the album into its relationships with competing artists, missing the specific dynamic between Havoc and Prodigy that makes The Infamous so legendary. Greene’s review reads more like a glorified Wikipedia article—impressing readers with the backstory of Havoc’s relentless sampling and Prodigy’s gunfights—than it does an album review. Yet despite the article’s shortcomings, he still reaches the same conclusion that almost any old-school rap fan agrees with; The Infamous is a masterpiece.

Essential to understanding Mobb Deep’s music are the ambitions of Havoc and Prodigy. In a 2018 interview with the duo, both were asked where they would be without Mobb Deep. Havoc answered first; having leaned into the offerings at Manhattan’s High School of Art and Design, he was well underway to becoming an architect. He had ambitions outside of Queensbridge and was set on pursuing them. Prodigy, on the other hand, leaned back in his chair and thought. He was also at Manhattan’s High School of Art—because his friends had gone there. He told the interviewer that he wanted to be a detective (or maybe an FBI agent) whose power and access to information he found appealing growing up. Prodigy wanted to climb the ranks of Queensbridge.

Havoc and Prodigy consciously embraced their differences, masterfully building The Infamous around them rather than against them. Nearly every song on the album has some common appreciation for the gangster lifestyle, something both Havoc and Prodigy lived day-to-day. However, when rapping on their own verses, the two diverged, discussing the same topic from their own perspective. Take the first song on the album, “The Start of Your Ending,” which follows a classic Mobb Deep structure: lots of drinking, shout-outs from their crew, and more than enough descriptions of how they might kill you if you step foot in the wrong part of town. Havoc’s opening line (and by extension the album’s opener) is a commemoration of a friend he lost to murder—solemn but not overly mournful. In stark contrast, Prodigy busts into the song two minutes later with “Yo, it's [Prodigy], push a Lex bubble in the winter. You can't come along, only the hoes can enter.” If it wasn’t clear, the “lex bubble" Prodigy references is a Lexus drop-top, of which the SC300 and SC400 were a serious statement of wealth in Queensbridge at the time. Prodigy continues with this materialistic self-inflation throughout the rest of the song—and album—reflecting his own desire to succeed within Queensbridge’s confines of success. Compared to Havoc’s more reserved attitude, Prodigy can feel boisterous and sometimes even naive. But each song is carefully balanced to ensure that the listener never gets tired of either, and instead, subconsciously appreciates both views.

Put another way, Mobb Deep folds the mindsets of Prodigy and Havoc together into a single message representing the two halves of projects’ inhabitants: those there to stay and those working to leave. Both Havoc and Prodigy embrace the Queensbridge lifestyle, glorify it, and perpetuate it. Frequently. And yet, amongst their stories of hardcore late-night robberies, they can call out the necessary evils that drive them. Mobb Deep’s music can both exalt Hennessy and vilify alcohol without contradicting itself. This un-paradoxical self-awareness is what Mobb Deep introduced to the gangster rap scene, and what set them apart from the thousands of other rap groups—from Queensbridge, and New York City, and the rest of the US—allowing them to achieve legendary status. For all the listeners in similarly tough situations, living in projects or not, at least one half of Mobb Deep always agreed with their goals, and the other half at least respected it.

Greene hints at the duo’s dynamic at points throughout his review, but never fully explicates it. For example, early on in the article, Greene touches on “Shook Ones Pt. II,” Mobb Deep’s most famous work and penultimate track on The Infamous. His characterization of the song as “half war cry, half last gasp” recognizes that there is more to the song—and Mobb Deep—than the gun-toting-upholders-of-realness Havoc and Prodigy praise themself as. But instead of investigating further, Greene finds the need to compare “Shook Ones Pt. II” to other songs by other rappers. Regardless of whether his comparison is meaningful, Greene’s habit of comparing Mobb Deep to other rap groups causes his narrative to scurry away from The Infamous’ success as quickly as it approached it.

Greene’s discussion of Mobb Deep’s financial woes following their first album (and only published work before The Infamous) is another example of relevant context for the album’s creation that is nonessential in a 15 paragraph review. While it may be true that Mobb Deep’s first album flunked, causing their record label to drop them, this was not quite the near-death experience that Greene dramatically makes it out to be. Mobb Deep was still experimenting at the time, finding their sound and place within the rap scene, and were not put off by their sagging sales. In fact, Mobb Deep’s unflinching response to this setback epitomizes their music and reinforces both their determination to achieve their goals, whether its through selling drugs, armed robbery, or making music. The Infamous was just one facet of a lifetime’s work to make it up or out of the projects, and a failed record deal certainly wasn’t the most pressing obstacle in their way.

With all that being said, Greene does include some worthwhile observations on The Infamous’ form. Referencing a line in “Trip up North,” Greene claims that The Infamous marks a “[shift] in gangsta rap [] from corner scrambles and specific vendettas to all-out war, endless and impersonal.” Paired with Mobb Deep’s Dunn Language (a pig-latin style of speech inspired by one of their crew-mate’s speech impediments), the result is a way of speaking fully unique to Mobb Deep but relatable to audiences across the US, not just the 7,000 other inhabitants of Queensbridge familiar with the local beef. As an East Coast rap fan myself, it still took until Greene mentioned Mobb Deep’s shift in language for me to recognize that aspect of The Infamous’ effect on rap. While referring to unnamed “enemies” may not be the reason why The Infamous did so well, its subsequent adoption by the rest of rap is certainly evidence for the album’s social impact.

The Infamous is a collection of the most violent aspects of life in the projects delivered evenly by Havoc and Prodigy for mass appreciation. Thanks to the duo’s differences, the album is allowed to contradict itself—in the same way a gangster’s life may contradict itself—without feeling insincere. Greene’s review struggles to pick up on these essential themes, instead pandering to an audience wanting to hear more stories of shootings and gangster gossip. Yet, even through his narrow view, Greene still finds his way to the same extraordinary conclusions. And perhaps that very fact, that removing the album’s most impressive features, still leaves it at a 10 is testament to just how incredible the work is. As for Mobb Deep, if their goal with The Infamous was to teach the world what living in 1990s Queensbridge was like, they certainly succeeded. But it wasn’t. Havoc and Prodigy set out to escape a war, and it's up to them to say whether they made it out alive.