Benny Reid is a producer/composer/saxophonist from New York who has been releasing music for about the last fifteen years, with releases on Concord and Fat Beats, along with plenty of commercial work. After working with Jonathon Hay on an instrumental version of Follow the Leader that came out in 2019, he caught the attention of none other than Havoc from Mobb Deep. Havoc not only authorized Reid to reconstruct the landmark 1995 Mobb Deep album, The Infamous, he worked with him on the project that is now here, The Infamous Live.

When you take shortcuts on a project like this, the work can become cheesy really quickly, and you’re left with an album that sounds like hip hop remade as elevator music. However, when done well, with a lot of care and respect for the source material, it can be really fun to listen to a re-imagined jazz/hip hop project like this one. Much like El Michels Affair and Brownout before him, Benny Reid is giving the source material it’s proper respect, and of course it doesn’t hurt to have one half of Mobb Deep in the studio with him to help sort out how to best recreate the soundscape and put his own instrumental spin on things. It can be a tough tight rope to walk, but when it’s done well, projects like this can turn into a really wonderful tribute to the production of a certain album. And that’s where this project really shines – for all of the classic hip hop being made around 1995 in New York, a lot of the time The Infamous can get overlooked, and especially all the dope production that Mobb Deep were laying down themselves. With The Infamous Live, without any vocals, we’re just focusing on this grimy, funky, intricate soundscape that Mobb Deep crafted, and it sounds just as good now as did all those years ago. On top of all this we get Benny Reid finding just the right balance on the sax in providing the melody of the voices without doing too much or trying to match every little ad lib or whatnot. It’s just the right amount to move the songs along and give you little flourishes here and there to provide some interest and make it Reid’s own.

The Infamous Live might sound simple on paper, but it’s a difficult project to pull off in practice. Benny Reid did a lot of great work on this album, and it didn’t hurt that he got the greatest assist he could hope for when Havoc not only gave the project his blessing, he helped it come to life.