Mobb Deep was my favorite group during the mid to late 1990′s. It’s a shame how far they’ve fallen since the days of The Infamous. A few months back, rumours swirled that Mobb Deep was about to break up after Havoc supposedly tweeted comments about Prodigy. Shortly after the tweet, Havoc released a statement saying that his phone was stolen and someone maliciously tweeted the message. Sources close to the situation mentioned a fight between between the two and Havoc having a drinking problem. Last week, Hav finally admitted in an interview with allhiphop.com that the tweet was him and Mobb Deep is on “indefinite hiatus”.

Before Mobb Deep’s demise, they recorded the album Murda Muzik which was leaked months prior to release. It’s what I consider to be the last good (official) Mobb Deep album. The beat for the Alchemist-produced “The Realest” was originally intended to be an interlude. However, Mobb Deep and Kool G Rap loved the beat so much, it became a full song on the album. The main loop was lifted from Ecstasy, Passion & Pain’s “Born to Lose You“.

Ecstasy, Passion & Pain was a disco/up-tempo soul group that had decent chart success with multiple singles. The group was an actual band, but most of their hits contained instrumenation from the oft-sampled Philly group M.F.S.B. A look at the liner notes will reveal some familiar faces among the production credits including Norman Harris, Bobby Eli, and Vince Montana. The most interesting name on the back cover is actually Ronald Foster, keyboardist for the group. You probably know him better as Ronnie Foster.