Prodigy Mural Permanently Removed Following Defacement

    A Queensbridge mural created to honor the late Prodigy has been permanently removed after vandals defaced it on two separate occasions. Photographer Raphael Gonzalez, who has been documenting the work of the mural’s creators, shared a picture of the art’s former home and commended the artists for their efforts.

    “The #Prodigy tribute is no more and has been buffed black,” Gonzalez wrote on Instagram. “#queensbridge Much respect to @jeffhenriquezart_ and @elementsofstyle_nyc for their dedication and hard work, thy got a lot of love and respect from the community. True artists.”

    News of the mural’s unfortunate removal first emerged when Frankie Cutlass, a producer who has worked with Mobb Deep, shared a video of its eradication on Monday (July 10). View the footage below.

    (This article was last updated on July 10, 2017 and can be found below).

    The massive mural street artists Jeff Henriquez and Eli “Eli Eos” Lazare painted in honor of the late Mobb Deep MC Prodigy was destroyed by vandals over the weekend, just hours after it was unveiled. Henriquez and Lazare worked diligently to repair it and after 15 hours of work, revealed the finished product (again). But it didn’t last.

    The mural, which is located on 13th Street and 40th Avenue in New York City, has been defaced once again, this time with a giant splash of red paint littered across the Queensbridge Hip Hop legend’s face and right arm.

    While many people are outraged at the blatant disrespect, Henriquez likely isn’t surprised. In an Instagram photo he posted to his account on Sunday (July 9), the artist wrote: “Sadly I expect my wall to get hit again. But regardless. The statement we made today represents the resilience of a community and a deep love for one man. Im honored to have been asked to do the piece.”

    Whether the mural will be resurrected a second time or not remains to be seen. For now, check out the photo above.

    (The original version of the story was published on July 8, 2017 and can be found below.)

    Less than 24 hours after a mural dedicated to Prodigy was unveiled, vandals evidently decided to destroy the artistic tribute to the late Mobb Deep MC. Close friend and collaborator Cormega posted a photo, which has since been deleted, to his Instagram account showing white paint splattered across Prodigy’s face with a caption that read: “This is some sucker shit.”

    The mural was painted on the wall of the Urban Upbound building on 13th Street and 40th Avenue, across the street from the Queensbridge Houses in New York City where Prodigy spent part of his youth.

    Artists Jeff Henriquez and Eli “Eli Eos” Lazare, who created the mural over a course of five days, have yet to react on social media, but many others have taken time to express their outrage at the blatant vandalism. It’s unclear if the NYPD is investigating it as a crime.

    Prodigy passed away at the age of 42 in Las Vegas last month after complications with sickle cell anemia, a condition he’d fought his entire life.

    Check out some of the reactions below.

    107 thoughts on “Prodigy Mural Permanently Removed Following Defacement

    1. My mob’s like a bunch of wild Puerto Ricans
      With bangers the size of African spears, it’s warfare
      In the arena, we turn arenas into house of horrors
      Its terrodome, when you see my clique you need to run behind shit
      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
      60 G’s worth of gun clapping
      Who shot ya? You probably screamed louder than an opera
      New York got ya, now you wanna use my mob as a crutch
      What you think you can’t get bucked again?

            1. Boa you a hater. What makes you envy another guy so much? That’s a female trait.

        1. Calling another man king ctfu u probaly wanna be jay z sex slave huh u such a pathetic excuse for somebody throw away sperm ya mother shouldve swallowed u shitted u out and flushed ya bum ass and fyi since u talkin bout ppl that got served on wax your king got served by nas and u still mad hoe lmao

        2. There’s a couple of tracks from a period when P was reigning and Hov got obliterated. Just listen to Big L’s “Da Graveyard” & Big Daddy Kane’s “Show & Prove” to hear Hov tongue-twisting a Das EFX type of flow, which is quite painful to listen to, as Big L raps circles around him on the former, while ODB steals the show on the latter. Even against the others Hov hardly can make a difference. All the while P & Nas were reigning the streets.

          1. Are you kidding? King HOV killed those tracks too. Just because he was flowing faster doesn’t mean he was wack. RIP Big L, but his verse was nothing but shock value shit. King HOV was spitting that real shit on his verse. “Creep through your block, fuck a glock, I step, Through your neighborhood armed with nothing but a rep”… “When I’m in a zone, better hold your own, ‘Cause I like to break when I finish a poem” C’mon, you can’t tell me he didn’t kill that shit!

            1. Yup, and some of his other lines from that verse are “I’m giving ladies something they can feel cause I’m real / yo man, get outta line and it’s kill kill kill” (right after those “…nothing but a rep” bars) or “Pound for p-p-pound the best around, no way you can get up when I get down / I shake rattle and roll and wreck shit like none, etc…”., so you’re reachin’ to state he killed that shit. Cause in all honesty, he got blasted by L whose verse was on point all the time. L was better back then, Nas certainly was, P had “Shook Ones” out already, which was on its way to become a classic and a whole slew of other rappers were killing it also. Hov around ’94/’95 was decent, but nothing special… Back then, he was in no way the rapper it would become later on. But you’re so infatuated by Hov, you would never admit that. Your standom is almost like you be having posters on your bedroom wall by the man. But don’t let it cloud it your objective vision.

    2. Looks like someone beat me to the punch. I applaud whoever did this. You da real MVP. Rest in piss, Ballerina P.

      1. U a whole bitch aint nobody beat u to the punch succa u aint got the heart to do anything but type a bunch of tough shit u ignorant and i hope somebody catch ya bitch ass and knock u the fuck out clown

      2. “beat you to it” hahaha you’re nothing but a an internet troll, you’d have to leave the house first.

    3. Coward

      [kou-erd]

      noun

      a person who lacks courage in facing danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc.; a timid or easily intimidated person.

      adjective

      lacking courage; very fearful or timid.

      proceeding from or expressive of fear or timidity :a coward cry.

        1. Only sounds dumb to these effeminate cowards… If you got a problem with someone you settle it like men… Not wait till your enemy’s dead to pull a dishonorable stunt like this and run and hide… Thats that f a g swag… Real nic cas do real things

        2. Only sounds dumb to these effeminate cowards… If you got a problem with someone you settle it like men… Not wait till your enemy’s dead to pull a dishonorable stunt like this and run and hide… Thats that homoswag… Real nic cas do real things

    4. Probably a 2pac Stan still butt-hurt about P ‘droppin a gem on em’ LOL @ pussy noggas!

    5. Shows you how strong and powerful African Americans are. Nobody wants to see you shine. Even our own people. Facts. Not sure which race did this stupid act but im pretty sure this wouldn’t have took place if that was a mural of Eminem or Elvis.

    6. Ironically it was probably a black person who did this. Your kind are stupid and never once has any other culture envied you. If anything pitied. You kill yourselves off in alarming numbers, way more than police. You idolize money and glam and ego. Black people have never been more entitled and yet equally undeserving. Boo fucking hoo.

      1. You’re more than partially right..I’ll give you that. But you said ” ironically it PROBABLY was a black person who did this” I already said African Americans hate on their own people which didn’t rule a black person out from commuting such a stupid and evil crime..but how does this imply that a black person did this? A white person could have done this..a Hispanic could have, as well as a black person..who knows? So how do you know?

      2. You’re outside looking in. people in every race are ignorant and materialistic. Conceited and mentally unstable. The point you’re making is invalid. Your only source of information is television and the internet. You’ve yet to experience the world for what it is. In that aspect alone everyone is lost. I guess you’re better off ranting in some blog.

        1. Im not on the outside looking in FRFR, I spent my whole life inside inner STL, and been to Chi a bunch as well. Im on the inside looking out. As a native american who’s parents left one ghetto for another, I can say indefinitely we will never see a Native President, and my people might have it bad, but we aint killing each other and drowing in a cess pool culture. Hispanics, Natives, Asians, Muslims all deal with racism here, but we dont make it worse by acting a fool- Ive dealt with it, but stop with the race card because it’s not helping your CULTURE.

    7. What do you expect? Black people kill each other more than any other race in America! Very few have true class or respect for anything!

        1. What if told you that every living person on this planet has some form of pure African DNA in their blood?? so if we are all so called “black”… what if I told you to stfu / kys

    8. The people at HHDX wants to act like we the posters are all bigots but the reality is that they are hardline Zionists.

    9. “It’s unclear if the NYPD is investigating it as a crime.”

      Them pigs prolly did that shit in the first place.

    10. This is some disrespectful WHITEBOY peckerwood shit they did! Fuck the whiteboys that did this! RIP Bandana P!

    11. It’s no excuse for the people who did this but I wondered how a lot of people in QB felt about them putting that mural there. Mobb Deep had serious beef with people there, like life or death beef. Its no secret. He wrote about a lot of it in his book. And it was especially with Prodigy because he wasn’t from there. Not saying people should have done that but I knew a lot of people wouldn’t like it.

    12. mother fuckers who did this are just fools,no matter how much damage they do to great arts like this the truth will always be there,no matter how much they hate…the truth will always be there.P was one of the greatest and no one can change that..i bet whoever did this must be a fan of this modern generation clown ass bitch ass fake ass gay ass (Thug) weak ass stupid ass funny looking ass rappers…damn

    13. I been saying it; this is hip hop’s problem! No respect! That man deserved better than that. Even if I was at odds with him, I could never do that to a person who passed away. Why would any one think that’s cool to do? Cowards!

    14. The person/ people who did this need their grave pissed on when they die. And this once again shows you how powerful black people are. They hate on us while we’re here, and hate on us when were dead.

      1. Lol 10k says it was a black man. Nobody has more hate for blacks than other blacks. Y’all even treat dark skin blacks like another race lmao.

    15. So they didn’t have people posted up? Ray Charles could’ve seen this coming. Mount a camera or something. I called it that they would deface it within a week again.

    16. Shows how divided New York is right now. Guys taking pictures and all that but low-key badmouthing each other. Even P (God bless his soul) was guilty of this. This is why the South runs sh!t, they real genuine with the way they feel.

    17. Yes! Way to go, mysterious vandals. Even in his own neighborhood, Ballerina P is hated on. When King HOV dies and a mural goes up of him in Marcy, no one would think twice about vandalizing it. Watch all the Ballerina P fans go cry in a dark corner and hang themselves. Rest in piss!

      1. Why that hate?
        Don’t you get enough pussy u douchebag.
        But fine, stay an asshole as you are already and nobody gives a shit when your time is up!

      2. So does Queen Hov shave or is it a wild jungle down there, also what’s the consistency of his jizz like
        chunky or smooth?

      3. Nas said it best fuckboy hate is just confused admiration chump let that man rest and stop juggling jay z babies wit ya tongue cornball

    18. What y’all fail to realize although prodigy repped queens bridge he is not from there. We don’t know what back history this man had in that hood. RIP to him and his legacy. Seems the graffiti artist didn’t have the green light from the community to do this and this is what happens. Welcome to NYC not that gentrified fake vegan hipster stuff we see now.

    19. P wrote a tell all book. A tell all book! No way he gets respect in the hood. Alive or dead.

      1. Watch out for the old “snitches get stitches” chant. Old corny ass…

        “Respect in the hood”…considering how many young people incarcerated…how’s that no snitch policy working out?

    20. People who feel adamant about this mural should stand guard if they try to put it up again. All it took was a day to get defaced. Mobb Deep got love on the West Coast. Someone should put one up here.

    21. They should have left it vandalised like that…it would be a symbol of how real hiphop is shitted on nowadays…it would be art…

      1. Probably some feminist or f a g g o t making a “statement” against the “mysogony” that rap harbors against there invisible causes lol

    22. P…the best to ever do it..love all albums by him an havoc..collectors itemz..4 real..mobb4lyfe..
      #R.I.P.

    23. i wonder how hiphop will be by the year 2040….it would probably turn to be the damn RnB.hiphop is getting extinct…fuck this generation man i would hate to be this damn soft people who dont appreciate the elders in the industry.bunch of kids flooding around fast goddamn pussy ass kids got no love….get back to your mamas pussies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    24. Only thing that needs to be permanently removed is the shit stain who did this…if you readin this…FUCK U…URE GONNA GET YOURZ

    25. RIP Prodigy…. I can’t help to think that the defacement had something to do with the book Prodigy wrote a few years back… He did call out a few names in that book and it don’t look like QU has gotten past it.

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