Mobb Deep's Prodigy died last summer at the age of 42. The rapper struggled with sickle cell anemia throughout his illustrious career, becoming an advocate for those suffering from the rare blood disease. WNYC is launching a new podcast called The Realness that promises to shed light on Prodigy's personal battle with the disease as…

As of this year, Prodigy, one half of the iconic Queens rap duo Mobb Deep, has been gone for one year. A year ago today, Prodigy died of complications from sickle cell anemia, the disease he'd been fighting for his whole life. But new Prodigy and Mobb Deep music is still coming out. Two days…

Every month, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda shares a new Hamilton-inspired song as part of what he calls his Hamildrops. In the recent past, that's included tracks from people like "Weird Al" Yankovic and the Decemberists -- people who, you might not be shocked to learn, might do songs inspired by Broadway musicals. The eternally hard&#...

The great rap producer the Alchemist has gone through a number of fascinating career phases in the past two decades: Teenage novelty, proven hitmaker, gutter-rap stalwart, and on to his current run as a tripped-out underground stoner-rap elder. In the past year, he’s released full-length collaborations with Mobb Deep’s Prodig...

A few years ago, the veteran Mobb Deep rapper Prodigy linked with the producer Alchemist to release Return Of The Mac, a deeply excellent album of wizened soul-sampling New York tough talk. Prodigy and Alchemist have once again linked for a new collaborative album called Albert Einstein, and on the prettily slow-rolling track “YNT,&...