Neck", and by fall 1993, the label had signed Mobb Deep. In 1994, the group released the promotional single "Shook Ones", which served as a preview of their new sound. Unlike the duo's first album, The Infamous was mostly self-produced by Havoc and Prodigy, with outside help from Loud A&R representatives Matt Life (aka Matty C) and Schott Free, as well as A Tribe Called Quest producer Q-Tip, who discovered Mobb Deep in the early 1990s. Matt Life later recalled Q-Tip's involvements, stating, "Tip was very involved in The Infamous from early on. Probably more than people know. Tip was just a fan of theirs and I knew him from way back, so he was really helpful, giving them advice." Q-Tip's contributions to the album were credited under his alias "The Abstract". On the group's decision to handle most of the production, Havoc later commented, "We started producing because other producers was giving us shit that we didn't like, or they was just charging too much. I didn't know nothing about producing music at the time, but I learned by watching others." Recording and production Recording sessions for The Infamous began in 1994 and took place at Battery Studios, Platinum Island Studios, Firehouse Studios and Unique Recording in New York City. Havoc produced most of the beats in his Queensbridge apartment, with Prodigy often assisting him; earlier in their career, Prodigy taught him how to sample. Describing their minimal production setup, Prodigy said, "Our first sampler we had was an EPS 16 plus ... We had that for a little while, and when the MPC came out we bought that, and that was it. A little record player, a little mixer, and that's all we needed." Mobb Deep initially recorded 20 songs for The Infamous, but executive producers Matt Life and Schott Free worked with them to improve the music. Matt Life recalled, "Schott worked closely with them on how the rhymes were coming and I worked closely with them on how production was coming. The first thing that I remember is them creating a semblance of the core of the first album and me creating a rough in-house version of what the album could be and throwing a sticker on the cassette." The early rough version of the album contained five or six songs, including the original versions of the album's four singles. The original "Temperature's Rising" was remade