by the Selectors of the Pratt Collection Management Department
Click the cover to reserve your copy now!
New Fiction Titles
New Nonfiction Titles
New Graphic Novels
New Anime Titles
Category: General
A Tribute to Prodigy
by Will Johnson, “The Uncommon Librarian,” Northwood Branch Manager
Hip Hop has lost another legend. Albert Johnson, also known as “Prodigy,” succumbed to his battle with Sickle cell disease at the age of 42. One half of the Mobb Deep duo, Prodigy was known for his poignant rhymes, storytelling, and bringing the struggle of growing up in Queens, New York to life. Baltimore isn’t Queens, but Mobb Deep’s music spoke about the grittiness of growing up in Queensbridge Housing Projects, the biggest housing project in North America. His music also spoke to the struggle a lot of young black men deal with across the country.
Prodigy began his rapping career at the age of sixteen. His first album was called Juvenile Hell. The album was not a commercial success however; it prepped Mobb Deep for their critically acclaimed second album The Infamous. The album produced four singles that reached billboard status; “Shook Ones Pt. II“, “Survival of the Fittest“, “Temperature’s Rising“, “Give Up the Goods (Just Step)“. Rolling Stone listed “Shook Ones Pt. II” on their list of 50 Greatest Hip Hop Songs Of All Times.
Over the year’s Prodigy released five albums as a soloist and seven albums as a member of Mobb Deep. He also authored four books, including: My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy, H.N.I.C: An Infamous Novella and Commissary Kitchen: My Infamous Prison Cookbook.
Click on the images to link to materials in the library catalog.
You can also listen to a podcast of his 2011 Writers LIVE program.
R.I.Paradise, Prodigy.
Welcome Ben Rosenberg as New Pratt Library Board Chair
The Enoch Pratt Free Library is proud to announce Benjamin Rosenberg has been elected the new Chair of the Pratt Library Boards of Directors and Trustees. Rosenberg is the founder and Chairman of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg, LLP, and is recognized as a preeminent litigator in the state of Maryland.
Rosenberg has been on the Pratt Library board since 2012, serving the past two years as the Vice-Chair. “Since joining the Board of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, I have become convinced that the Library is the most important educational institution in Baltimore,” says Rosenberg. “It provides a venue for hundreds of thousands of Baltimoreans to satisfy their intellectual curiosity, to explore job opportunities or to indulge in the simple pleasure of reading a good book. I am humbled and honored to serve our City as the next Chair of the Pratt Library Board.”
Rosenberg succeeds Patricia Lasher, who has been Chair of the Pratt Library Board since 2013.
Have You Signed up For Summer Challenge?
Thanks to Fox 45 for helping us get the word out! Sign up at your Pratt branch today.
For Civil War History Buffs…
Organized to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, Digital Maryland’s Civil War in Your Attic collection represents a statewide effort to locate, digitize, and preserve treasured materials documenting the Civil War and Reconstruction, held in private collections across the state. Among a trove of letters, diaries, photographs, reports, and more, you will find the discharge record for African American Union soldier George Washington, who served with the Massachusetts 55th Regiment, the second all-black regiment from the North organized after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.