Havoc has debunked the long-standing myth surrounding the stove “sample” on Mobb Deep’s classic song “Shook Ones Part II.”
In a new interview with the SiriusXM radio show WkndWork, the Queensbridge native sat alongside Tony Yayo and fellow producer Buckwild to reflect on Hip Hop’s 50th anniversary this year.
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During the conversation, Havoc opened up about the making of “Shook Ones Part II” and clarified that the stove sound heard on the track did not come from a real burner — despite long-standing rumors pointing to the contrary.
“You know when a myth take a life of its own?” Havoc said. “You just be like, fuck it, you don’t wanna hurt nobody’s feelings so you just agree with the myth. I be like, ‘Alright, fuck it. Yeah, it’s from the stove.'”
He continued: “The myth sounds better than the real story. I just be like, ‘Fuck it, it came from the stove.'”
Havoc previously spoke about this aspect of Mobb Deep’s iconic 1995 song during an interview with REVOLT in 2020, revealing the hi-hat he used sounded eerily similar to a stove top.
“The truth of the matter is that the hi-hat that I used on the actual track of ‘Shook Ones’ sounds similar to a project stove,” he said. “So, people made a correlation thinking I used the stove for the actual track because in the video, it’s the first thing that comes on along with the record. And they hear the hear the stove.”
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He added: “So, people said, ‘Oh shit, he used that for it!’ Nah, it’s two different sounds, but they sound the same. It’s just a coincidence, but I let people sometimes think what they wanna think and let the track take on its own mystique (laughs).”
Another noteworthy part of Mobb Deep’s The Infamous cut is the Herbie Hancock “Jessica” piano sample used in the background, which was slowed down and altered to create the haunting soundscape.
The original “Shook Ones” arrived in 1994 as Havoc and Prodigy’s debut single on Steve Rifkind’s Loud Records, but it was the sequel that rose to infamy, becoming arguably the duo’s most memorable song while appearing in Eminem’s8 Mile.
Prodigy sadly passed away aged 42 in 2017 from complications due to sickle-cell anemia. His first posthumous album, The Hegelian Dialect 2: The Book of Heroine, was released last September.
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The project served as the follow-up to 2017’s Hegelian Dialectic (The Book of Revelation) and will be followed by a third installment, The Book of the Dead.
Revisit “Shook Ones Part II” below:
