Mobb Deep live at Crocks in Thunder Bay, 4 November 2014

In July 2012 Havoc announced an indefinite hiatus for Mobb Deep. Two years and a few months later, on Tuesday 4 November 2014, the group was booked into Crocks. Only the group is named in the announcement, which went up on 23 September, and a plain reading of the name is the duo of Havoc and Prodigy.

The room was 16 Cumberland Street South, in the middle of a stretch of autumn nights that ran from a masked DJ to a Swedish metal band.

Two rappers from Queens

Mobb Deep formed in Queens, New York, in 1990. They began as Poetical Prophets and became Mobb Deep in 1992. Their second album, The Infamous, came out in 1995 and carried “Shook Ones, Part II,” which remains their best-known single, and “Survival of the Fittest.” Hell on Earth followed in 1996 and Murda Muzik in 1999.

“Shook Ones, Part II” also reached a wider audience through the 2002 film 8 Mile, where it plays in one of the rap-battle scenes.

Their label history moves around. They recorded for 4th & B’way, then Loud Records, then Jive, and between 2005 and 2009 for G-Unit Records, 50 Cent’s imprint. None of that appears on the notice, but it explains how a group could tour on a back catalogue and a name at once.

A hiatus and a reunion

The hiatus did not last. The duo reunited in March 2013, performing at the Paid Dues festival, and set out on a tour for the 20th anniversary of their debut album. That tour revived a record that had been in development since 2011 and had stalled during the feud between the two.

The Infamous Mobb Deep appeared on 1 April 2014 as a double album, and it was their eighth studio record. One disc held new songs, produced by Havoc, Illmind, the Alchemist and Boi-1da among others. The other held tracks left over from the sessions for The Infamous.

The singles were “Taking You Off Here” and “Say Something.” New tracks featured French Montana, Juicy J, Bun B, Busta Rhymes, Nas and Snoop Dogg. The album reached number 49 on the Billboard 200 and number ten on the R&B and hip-hop albums chart.

Reviews were mixed to good, with a Metacritic average of 70 and a low mark of 4.9 out of 10 from Pitchfork.

The Thunder Bay date fell seven months after release. A North American tour had run from 10 January to 2 May, so this Tuesday fell outside it.

The Tuesday

The date was also United States Election Day, a coincidence with no bearing on a Canadian club. Amon Amarth had played the same room on a Tuesday four weeks earlier, and Beenie Man had played it on a Tuesday in April, so a midweek headliner at Crocks was ordinary in 2014. Across the year’s eleven priced shows, admission ran from $5 to $50.

The announcement went up on the same day as DJ BL3ND’s. The two nights sit a month apart, and one was built for a dance floor, the other for people who know the words.

Two days later, Toronto

Two days after Crocks, on Thursday 6 November, Mobb Deep played the Guvernment in Toronto. Exclaim! reviewed that show and called it the duo’s first Toronto performance in two decades. The ticket was $50, the top of the 2014 price range in the Thunder Bay record. The set ran about an hour, with DJ Ski Beatz on instrumental cuts.

Those details belong to Toronto. Nothing in the Thunder Bay announcement describes the set here. Still, two Ontario dates two days apart read as part of one short Canadian run.

Other rap dates in the record

This was not the first New York hip-hop name to come through. In February 2012, Raekwon was on a listed run of dates, billed as Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon the Chef. In April 2014, Beenie Man brought Jamaican dancehall to the same address.

Prodigy died on 20 June 2017, aged 42, while in hospital with complications of sickle cell anemia. That September Havoc opened a solo Canadian tour in Vancouver, eleven cities in five provinces, in honour of his friend.