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Vandals deface mural of late hip-hop star Prodigy

July 8, 2017 Staff Report

Vandals have defaced the mural of the late rapper Prodigy that went up on a wall by Queensbridge Houses on Thursday.

Artists Jeff Henriquez and Eli Lazare painted the portrait as a tribute to Prodigy, who was raised in Queensbridge Houses. Prodigy, born Albert Johnson, died June 20, at age 42, from complications with sickle cell anemia.

This morning members of the Hip Hop community expressed disappointment when they discovered the mural had been vandalized.

Members of Hip Hop group Snowgoons expressed their anger on Facebook this morning. “Man this makes us sad and mad! So disrespectful on every level. We hope karma gets this shithead real bad! They can destroy the mural but never the image and legacy of #Prodigy R.I.P.”

 

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Anonymous

Prodigy was one-half of the group with Havok. The group was called Mobb Deep. They were a duo that came from the 1st side of Queensbridge projects. Before they signed a contract to G-Unit’s 50 Cent, they made hit after hit and even collaborated with New York’s talented hip-hop/rap artists in their albums. One of their most controversial albums was right after 9/11 called Murder Music portraying their life as a struggle of a young man who had to stay alive by protecting their blocks from outsiders (sound familiar?).
Once Prodigy died a week right after when he was in Vegas with family celebrating, Mobb Deep’s music exploded in You Tube with millions of hits and views from their last 3 to 4 albums.
Anyone who would defame an artist by vandalizing artwork like that should be arrested…

Reply
your neighbor

Jealousy, stupidity
Looked like a nice piece in the previous article, was going to take a walk by this week. Sad.
Hopefully whoever defaced the mural will get caught soon.

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Anonymous

this is a disgrace beautiful work — i guess someone was jealous of this person

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An Astoria mom

This beautiful mural ( saw the pic of the UNdamaged one in the previous story) needs to be restored asap. I dont even know Prodigy’s music( & will look it up now), but that vandalism was juvenile Hoping for. focus on the Memorial coming up. Memorials & prayers help the souls of the departed wherever they are,& they help us, too.

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jenastoria

That’s just awful. I hope there is some surveillance video nearby, and hopefully the vandals will be caught. There’s no legitimate excuse for defacing a memorial.

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