Mobb Deep’s 4th & B’way debut, 1993’s Juvenile Hell, spawned the single “Peer Pressure,” a now classic cut produced by DJ Premier. In light of Prodigy’s sudden passing earlier this week, Preemo has dusted off another vintage Mobb Deep offering, “Cop Hell,” which was the B-side to Gang Starr’s 1992 single, “Doe In Advance.”
While it was widely bootlegged, the song was never given an official standalone release. The track was evidently axed from the Juvenile Hell record because of the controversy surrounding Ice-T’s brutal “Cop Killer” single that was released the year prior.
Kookie Gonzalez, who was working at 4th & B’way at the time, explains it was also a matter of money.
“Mobb Deep’s budget for the LP was running extremely low,” Gonzalez tells HipHopDX. “Since we knew that Premier really liked them, we wanted to see what he could do for us. Preemo said he would do the remix to ‘Peer Pressure’ along with a whole new track — ‘Cop Hell.’ Once everything was mastered, we found out our distributors didn’t want us to release it because of a previous single that Ice-T put out called ‘Cop Killer,’ so ‘Cop Hell’ didn’t make the album, and Premier ended up putting it out as a white label.”
Twenty five years later, Preemo apparently decided the time was right to let “Cop Hell” shine. He accompanied the SoundCloud link with a description that read:
“THIS SONG WAS PULLED FROM THE “JUVENILE HELL” LP AFTER THE WHOLE ICE-T ‘COP KILLER’ SONG WAS SHOCKING THE WORLD; SO MOBB DEEP’s LABEL 4TH & B’WAY REMOVED IT AS WELL…
SOME COPIES LEAKED, BUT MOST DJ’s DON’T HAVE IT. ME, PRODIGY AND HAVOC GOT PULLED OVER BY THE COPS IN 1993 AND THEY WERE ON SOME FOUL SHIT, BUT WE WERE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITHOUT THEM FINDING OUT HOW DIRTY THE CAR WAS BACK THEN…
SO WE WROTE THIS SONG ABOUT IT…HERE IT IS UNCUT…WE ARE GONNA MISS YOU PRODIGY…(R.I.P.). CONDOLENCES TO HIS FAMILY…”
Preemo, who is currently pushing his new collaborative album with MC Eiht, Which Way Iz West, has also been posting throwback photos to his Instagram account over the last week commemorating his decades-long friendship with the late Mobb Deep MC.
Check out the posts below and listen to “Cop Hell” above.
Did Prodigy diss Havoc during the bust up? Hate to say it but that Havoc diss was absolute fire!!
Mannn its hillarious seeing pics of what hiphop was in the 90’s then seeing a pic of young thug travis scott lil uzi vert any of the migos and this even newer school garbage lil xxx whatever and lol pumps dick slerping ass its like what the fuck went wrong?
Just Imagine if 17 year old mobb deep ran into kodak black, lil uzi, that one weird kid with red braids oh little yachti. ROB THEM ON SIGHT KID
That Juvenile Hell album was garbage to be real but it’s crazy that they followed it with 3 classics in a row Infamous,Hell On Earth and Murda Muzik. Mobb Deep got one the best discogs in the hip hop game so many bangers and Alchemist gave them lot of his best beats
It wasn’t garbage…just not their best effort…
I never heard the GangStarr song it was a b-side for either, apparently it was a promo single for Hard to Earn that was left off due to sample issues, but made the Japanese version. I love both GangStarr and Mobb Deep, so anyday I get to hear something new by them from the height of their careers it is a good day.
A left off track and its still better then 95% of the shit that gets released these days
wack sample, generic drum beat… premo smoking crack before he made this?
That beat was raw as fuck! That was his style back then. I’ll agree it’s not his best beat ever…
listen to some gangstarr, illmatic or jeru the damaja. his style was not weird wack samples, and totally generic drum samples. I guess there is a reason most people refer to the infamous as mobb deep’s first album… juvenile hell? indeed…