Prodigy, "The Phone Tap (Welcome To State Prison)"

I’m thankful to have never been locked up in prison. I visited someone in prison once, and being there for even three hours sucked. Albert “Prodigy” Johnson, one half of the Queens-based rap duo Mobb Deep, currently resides at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York, way up near Utica, serving the third year of a three-and-a-half-year sentence for gun possession. He recently got on the phone and recorded a long, grim, threatening rap over a beat made by producer Sid Roams. It sounds much like what I imagine being locked up in prison is like. It’s chilling. And not in the way that means “relaxing” at all.