Last week in New York, Prodigy gave a farewell concert, in which he performed both of his solo opuses, as he prepared to go to jail for anywhere between one and three years. P said that besides his kids, the person who is probably taking his sentence the worst is his partner, Havoc.

"Hav feels like he's getting locked up," P said. "Me and Hav have never been apart for more than two weeks, probably three. We never let three weeks go past without us in the studio working on a new song — new Mobb Deep song, new Prodigy song, new Hav, whatever — in our entire career! ... It's definitely something new to us, and we'll have to adjust to it.

"Me and Hav always talk about how we could never break up," V.I.P. added. "Our goal is to break the record for longest-running group in hip-hop. Our goal was to have the most longevity. ... We think about that all the time. We always try to keep Mobb Deep relevant and up there."

No new Mobb albums until P comes out (although the duo have a million unreleased records in the stash). He is leaving us with H.N.I.C. 2, though, the follow-up to his 2000 solo debut, which spawned one of our all-time favorite cuts, "Keep It Thoro" ("Doin' it past yo' delf you way out your jurisdiction.")

The independent album comes out on March 25, and he'll soon be releasing a DVD with a video for each song. He was inspired by watching "Heartless," a movie by Queens group the Live Squad that tells a story through six music videos.


Joints To Check For:

» "Dirty New Yorker." "Return of the Mac, that was me playing," P explained of the difference between last year's mixtape and his real album. "That's me on my downtime, me and Al[chemist] f---ing around. Less than a month we made that. When it comes to H.N.I.C.2, I don't play no games at all. I'm real serious. I recorded about 30-40 songs for this album. I picked the best 14 or 15. I decided to put lot more information in the album than I did before. I can articulate myself better."

» "Real Power Is People." "Soon as you put the album on, the first song is called 'Real Power Is People," P said. "It's incredible. The chorus goes 'F--- jewelry./ F--- rims./ Let's spend on our protection./ Get armor, get cameras./ Get with it, little n---as. This is man's sh--./ Real power is people./ Real strength is in the street.' When people hear it, they're gonna be like, 'P is on some sh-- right now.' "

» "Illuminati." "[When] we did 'I Shot Ya,' I was planting little seeds of information," P said. "I said, 'Illuminati want my mind, soul and my body.' ... That was it. Then I jumped into something else. I left people like, 'What is P talking about?' I left it for all these years. A lot of people started saying it after that. Pac called himself 'Don Killuminati.' DJ Clue has 'Cluemanati.' Jay-Z samples my voice on 'D'Evils.' I could tell I sparked something. I was like, 'Yeah, it's working. People are interested.' That's where I tried to take it on this album. Put more secret government, the illuminati sh--. Racial issues. Real factual sh--. People will be like, 'What are you talking about right there?' They'll want to research that."