Havoc is from the Queensbridge, Queens; his mother is from Brooklyn. His brother Killa Black is deceased. Havoc is the lead producer of Mobb Deep, and has produced songs for MCs such as The Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, Nas, Raekwon, 50 Cent, 112, Method Man, Mariah Carey, Puff Daddy, LL Cool J, Rohff, Big Noyd, Lil Kim, Capone-N-Noreaga, Foxy Brown, Onyx, and his partner Prodigy on his solo work. In 2005 Mobb Deep was signed to fellow Queens rapper 50 Cent's record labelG-Unit Records and left the label in 2009, in a mutually agreed to, release. Havoc is renowned among serious hip-hop fans as one of the prominent figures during the mid-1990s for his hard-hitting and stripped-down beats complementary to the RZA's work on Wu-Tang Clan projects. Popular music magazine Complex ranked Havoc among the top hip hop producers of 1995 after The Infamous. Beattips.com ranked him as the 24th most influential beatmaker of all time citing his dual abilities of rapping and producing. Following The Infamous, he tweaked his skills and transitioned to a more atmospheric production style that incorporated samples from classical music, most notably visible on the 1996 album Hell on Earth. As a rapper, he is known for his hardcore lyricism and consistent flow. He also contributed background vocals and a verse on Black Moon's debut album Enta da Stage in 1993. In July 2009, Havoc was featured alongside in J Dilla's music video for "24K Rap" off of the Jay Stay Paid album, the video was directed by Derek Pike. In 2010, Havoc produced a beat for Eminem which resulted in a song called "Untitled" which is a hidden track on Eminem's album Recovery and contributed to the iTunesbonus track to Raekwon's album Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang & Bad Meets Evil's EP. He revealed that he plans on recording a new Mobb Deep album with Nas. His third studio album13 was released on May 7, 2013. Havoc worked with Kavinsky on his 2013 album OutRun. He wrote the lyrics and sang the vocals for, "Suburbia", the sixth track on the album. In 2016, Havoc produced "Real Friends" and "Famous", two tracks on Kanye West's album The Life of Pablo.
Feuds
Prodigy
In July 2012, Havoc wrote a series of derogatory comments about Prodigy on Twitter, after Prodigy denied engaging in homosexual relationships in prison. At first, Havoc claimed that his Twitter account was hacked. However, he later confirmed that he wrote the tweets and expressed his frustrations with Prodigy in an interview with AllHipHop. He stated that Mobb Deep was on an "indefinite hiatus" until the duo worked out their differences. Havoc later released a diss track aimed at Prodigy, which was titled "Separated ". Prodigy did not respond to Havoc's song and, even stated publicly, that Mobb Deep would eventually reconcile. In March 2013, the duo announced that they had reconciled and were going on tour.
