The Drama Begins: Hell on Earth 25 Years Later

Photo of enhanced CD press release by Nick M. W.

By Nick M. W.

Music creates a mood. It can uplift your spirit and put a little extra glow in your sunny day, and it can comfort you when you are feeling your absolute worst. It can educate you. It can inspire you. It can terrify you, make you laugh, make you want to dance, or make you sing like you’re the only person on the planet. Music is magic, and musicians are magicians, no, they are sorcerers who create a world and draw you into it.

Mobb Deep was a hip-hop duo from the early 90s, who struck gold (and platinum) during that decade and helped elevate East Coast hardcore hip-hop to dominate the genre. I speak of them in the past tense because of Prodigy’s untimely death in 2017 from sickle-cell anemia, which led to the end of the duo. In the 90s, though, Mobb Deep was among the forbearers of the East Coast Renaissance, creating a distinct sound and painting vivid depictions of a world, a Queensbridge, consisting of dark alleys and grimey streets. Same ‘hood as Nas, but with their version was filled with less hope. Everything there was game for the hustle. Bullets flew and bodies dropped. Dollars were stacked via drug trade and gun trafficking, and the pursuit of money and power through criminal activity was detailed as their only escape from the horrors of the projects and poverty, told over thumping bass and haunting piano melodies.

Havoc, one half of the duo, was their Sorcerer of Sound. He created their world with his beats, which served as the backdrop for his partner’s lyrics. Havoc also rapped, but Prodigy was the Wizard of Words. He spoke the “Dunn Language” and crafted verses wrapped in barbed wire. Together, they dropped three incredible albums in the mid to late 90s. Today, I’m tipping my cap to one of those gems, Hell on Earth, which turns 25, and remains an underrated, East Coast hardcore rap classic.

Photo of the album cover by Nick M. W.

Hell on Earth departs from the same point where Mobb Deep left us on The Infamous..., with rugged beats and dark yet introspective lyrics about living and dying in the Queensbridge Housing Projects. Not that living in the projects ever sounds like the spot you want to be in, but to hear Havoc and Prodigy tell about it is to believe that these places truly are a modern day “Hell on Earth.” That was a big part of their music’s allure, especially for a tourist, like me. I didn’t grow up in the projects or in poverty, so stories of everyday life and survival of the fittest in these situations are fascinating. Pair these lyrics with Havoc’s eerie piano melodies and deep bass, and Mobb Deep had a winning formula.

The winning continued on Hell on Earth. Havoc leans on his menacing production throughout the album. The bass lines absolutely knock, a feature of Havoc’s production that he perfected by the time they recorded 1999’s Murda Muzik. Prodigy’s lyrics are always razor sharp, and the features on this album have substance. They aren’t just artists coming on to a track and laying a verse for a paycheck. Nas, Raekwon, Method Man, and Big Noyd have standout guest spots, each doing their thing with their verses.

Because Hell on Earth was recorded at the height of the East Coast/West Coast rivalry, any mention to “enemies,” “imbeciles,” “fake crooks,” and “shook ones” can be interpreted as a reference to Mobb Deep’s West Coast adversaries, specifically 2Pac, who the Mobb dissed in “Drop A Gem On ‘Em”. In an eerie coincidence, Prodigy’s lyrics on this track, like:

“You would think that getting your head shot’s enough but then/ You wanna go at my team,”

“Clock ticks your days are numbered to low digits,”

“You got a gat, you better find it/ And use that shit, think fast and get reminded/ Of robberies in Manhattan, you know what happened/Sixty G’s worth of gun clappin’,”

and

“What you think, you can’t get bucked again?”

These lyrics are chilling when you consider that 2Pac was dead just a couple weeks after “Drop A Gem On ‘Em” was released as a single. Of course, they were just words on a record, but Prodigy literally said 2Pac’s “days are numbered,” and they really were.

Personally, what I love most about this album is that it was once perfect to throw on and go skateboarding to because you didn’t need to skip any tracks. Skateboarding was my thing for years, and with Hell on Earth, you could sink into the beats and get into a rhythm, a flow state. The album’s peak moments ascend to great heights, and its lows are simply plateau’s back to Mobb Deep’s mean, their floor-level of grimey raps, which still bang. The sun set on my days of skateboarding, but Mobb Deep is timeless, and Hell on Earth is a snapshot of two hungry, hardcore rap artists channeling dark magic to make one of the cornerstone hip-hop albums of that era. 

Standout Tracks

“Drop A Gem On ‘Em”

I was actually today years old when I learned that this was a 2Pac diss track. I had my suspicions that Mobb Deep was dissing him, and I knew that they were talking shit about someone on this record, but in my mind it was an ambiguous “they” to whom the Mobb was referring. Turns out they had a real beef with a real person, and Prodigy pulls no punches in his verse, calling out (and being right) about 2Pac’s dwindling time on this planet.

“Hell on Earth (Front Lines)”

A melodic beat that sounds like it was made for lounging, not for a song about surviving the projects and going to war with “one time.” The title track is the best song on the album.

“Still Shinin’”

“Up the ladder of success with tecs, we build and destroy,” is an ill line for a hook on a song about the Mobb still grinding to make it to the top of the game. They have the awareness to know that they still have some work to do, and they’re not letting anyone step in their way.

Photo of the enhanced CD poster by Nick M. W.