Return Of The Mac was first released as a street mixtape to promote Prodigy’s second official solo album, H.N.I.C. Pt. 2, but it was so good, Koch Records picked it up and paid for all the blaxploitation-era soul samples producer Alchemist used. Both as a solo artist and half of Mobb Deep, Prodigy projected a kind of pained, grim-faced nihilism laced with paranoia, conspiracy theories, and outbursts of shocking violence. There are almost no guest appearances, and Alchemist produces every track; this is pure anti-commercial ’90s hardcore rap, but the music has a surprising lushness, strings and sped-up female voices wrapped around Prodigy’s vocals, which are muttered in a low monotone, like he has a migraine and is trying to explain something to you as efficiently as possible, because if you’re still in the room five minutes from now, he’s going to have to beat your ass.

Years of making beats for Mobb Deep gave Alchemist a powerful production rapport with both Prodigy and Havoc, and it was the former that gave Alc his first front-to-back classic with a single MC. Return of the Mac turned out to be a boon for both parties: after years trying to curry favor with pop-thug trends, Prodigy found himself back in hardcore heads’ favor with a lean, mean, sub-40-minute concentrated dose of the grimy crime storytelling he’d mastered circa The Infamous 12 years earlier. And Alchemist put out the most cinematically evocative slate of beats he’d assembled to date, Willie Hutch-ing his way through blaxploitation opulence and stinging soul riffs that felt poignant in its evocations of the ’70s, ’90s, and an uncertain aging-gangster future.