Midway through the year, and the world has already seen a few sad deaths occurring in the Entertainment industry including the recent death of lead singer of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell.
On Tuesday afternoon, news surfaced that another music artist had suddenly passed away. The rapper, Prodigy, the other half of the influential hip hop duo, Mobb Deep died suddenly. Prodigy was in Las Vegas with his other half over the weekend to perform a show at the Art of Rap tour.
There is no word at exactly how the rapper died but he had been hospitalized due to complications caused by sickle cell anemia prior to his death. There is an unconfirmed report from TMZ that the rapper may or may not have choked on an egg. According to the TMZ reports, Prodigy left a fan meet-and-greet Saturday while in Vegas when his security team noticed that the rapper was struggling a bit. He was then sent to the hospital and complications occurred.
Throughout Tuesday and across social media platforms, the music scene began to come together to share their feelings toward the recent death of Queens rapper and member of Mobb Deep. Prodigy’s death became to circulate when fellow Queens Native Nas posted a photo of the rapper on Instagram with the message “QB RIP Kind P.”
Fans also came together to express their sadness over the rapper’s death with Prodigy’s name trending on Twitter for most of the day.
Prodigy is the stage name of Albert Johnson who grew up in New York and became a well known hip hop rapper. He is known to fans as the other half of the legendary rap duo, Mobb Deep alongside Havoc (born Kejuan Muchita.) Prodigy came to be on the radar with the help of fellow rapper, Nas and then the duo that became Mobb Deep rose to popularity in the early 90s with their album The Infamous. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA within the first 2 months of it’s release. The duo had plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the album with a tour starting in October. Their biggest hits included “Quiet Storm” and “Shook Ones.” In 2011, Prodigy released an autobiography titled, My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Depp’s Prodigy. Co-written by Laura Checkoway, the book was published by Touchstone Books.
The late rapper’s publicist made a statement shortly after news broke of his death:
“It is with extreme sadness and disbelief that we confirm the death of our dear friend Albert Johnson, better known to millions of fans as Prodigy of legendary NY rap duo Mobb Deep. Prodigy was hospitalized a few days ago in Vegas after a Mobb Deep performance for complications caused by a sickle cell anemia crisis. As most of his fans know, Prodigy battled the disease since birth.The exact causes of death have yet to be determined. We would like to thank everyone for respecting the family’s privacy at this time.”
Here are a few other comments made about Prodigy:
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