In contrast, the “Black Cocaine” EP with Havoc was solid and hard without being amazing, P’s solo “The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson” EP (and later album) was decent and kind of cool in its theme, and “Product of the 80’s” from a few years earlier was outstanding, but P simply didn’t take the momentum from any of those releases, and instead kicked the hardcore material and his reputation to the curb with “H.N.I.C 3”.īased on that most recent release I did have fears about whatever Prodigy was going to do next. Even the non-cassanova type tracks weren’t up to his usual standards, being either bland, or more “glossy” than usual and generically flavoured for radio play (“Pretty Thug” – WTF?!). Maybe Prodigy only had his old Father MC and Candyman tapes in prison, or he was simply missing the punani too much, but I couldn’t understand or accept that at least one-third of the “H.N.I.C 3” album comprised of soft/smooth songs geared towards the ladies. I know most people were pretty let down by that album, but it really upset me and I was very close to throwing the CD out the car window on my first listen, I just couldn’t believe how bad it was (making Mobb’s “Blood Money” seem like a brilliant album in comparison). Actually no, it was worse than that because I only had one album’s worth of background to build up my expectations for Divine Styler’s follow-up LP, whereas I had almost 20 years worth of releases from Prodigy (solo and with Mobb Deep). 3.” It was one of the most disappointing rap albums of all time for me, only coming in second place behind Divine Styler’s “Spiral Walls Containing Autumns of Light”.