''H.N.I.C. 3'' is the fourth solo studio album by American hip hop recording artist

Prodigy Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to: * Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer ** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess Arts, entertainment, and m ...

. It was released on July 3, 2012, via Infamous Records, serving as the third and final instalment of the rapper's ''H.N.I.C.'' series. Recording sessions took place at Plain Truth Ent Studio.

Production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

was handled by

The Alchemist An alchemist is a person who practices alchemy. Alchemist or Alchemyst may also refer to: Books and stories * ''The Alchemist'' (novel), the translated title of a 1988 allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho * ''The Alchemist'' (play), a play by Ben ...

Beat Butcha Eliot Dubock, best known as Beat Butcha, is an English record producer, disc jockey and songwriter best known for his production work for SZA, The Carters, Brent Faiyaz, Dreamville, Banks, $uicideboy$, Tyler, the Creator, and various members of ...

, S.C.,

Ty Fyffe Tyrone Gregory Fyffe (born June 4, 1971), also known as Sugarless, is an American record producer from Queens, New York City. During his career he produced tracks for MC Lyte, Foxy Brown, Slick Rick, Ja Rule, Canibus, Jayo Felony, Queen Pen, ...

, Young L, Sid Roams, The Colombians,

T.I. Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. (born September 25, 1980), known professionally as T.I. or Tip, is an American rapper and singer raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Harris is credited as a pioneer of the hip hop subgenre trap music, along with fellow Georgi ...

, Valentino, and Zam, with Oh No and Mobetta producing the deluxe edition bonus tracks. It features

guest appearance The term guest appearance generally denotes the appearance of a guest in an artistic or pop-culture setting. The guests themselves (referred to as guest artists, featured artists, guest stars, or guest fighters, depending on context), are disting ...

s from Esther, Boogz Boogetz, T.I., Vaughn Anthony,

Willie Taylor William Madison Taylor III (born March 29, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as a contestant from MTV's ''Making the Band 4'', where he was chosen by Sean Combs, Sean "Diddy" Combs to be a member and ...

Wiz Khalifa Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), better known by his stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper, singer-songwriter and actor. Raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he signed with the local independent label Rostrum Records to re ...

, and his

Mobb Deep Mobb Deep was an American Hip-hop, hip hop duo formed in Queens, New York (state), New York in 1990. Consisting of rappers/songwriters/record producers Prodigy (rapper), Prodigy and Havoc (musician), Havoc, they are considered to be among the pr ...

cohort

Havoc havoc, Havoc, Havocs, Havok, or Havock may also refer to: People with the name * Havoc (musician) (born 1974), American rapper and record producer * Johnny Devine (born 1974), Canadian professional wrestler who uses the ring name Havok * Jimmy H ...

. The album peaked at number 123 on the ''Billboard'' 200, number 16 on the

Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, ...

, number 15 on the

Top Rap Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a music chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine that ranks R&B and hip-hop albums based on sales in the United States and is compiled by Luminate. The chart debuted as Hot R&B LPs in the issue dated January 30, ...

and number 17 on the

Independent Albums The Independent Albums chart (previously titled Top Independent Albums) ranks the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays (EPs) in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by '' Billboard'' mag ...

in the United States.

Critical reception

''H.N.I.C. 3'' was met with mixed or average reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a

normalized Normalization or normalisation refers to a process that makes something more normal or regular. Science * Normalization process theory, a sociological theory of the implementation of new technologies or innovations * Normalization model, used in ...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

score of 55, based on five reviews.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

's David Jeffries called it "a back-to-basics return to form with some worthy pop cuts, and it just takes a slight trim and a push of the shuffle button to become worthy of any long-term fan's attention". In mixed reviews, Jordan Sargent of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' wrote: "it may actually be best to just pretend that H.N.I.C. 3 ends after the 10th song, because up to that point it's a pretty good, if slightly uninspiring, mixtape". ''

HipHopDX ''HipHopDX'' is an online magazine of Hip hop music, hip hop music criticism and news. ''HipHopDX'' has over 3.5M monthly readers, the website encompassing hip hop news, interviews, music, and reviews. The website's founder and CEO is Sharath C ...

'' reviewer found "what makes 3 listenable in its darkest moments is the production, where P often struggles to sound comfortable". Pete T. of RapReviews stated: "while the music is consistent and fairly unique in its murkiness, it's not particularly compelling and is a tad stale". Jaeki Cho of '' XXL'' resumed: "unfortunately, the third installment of the critically acclaimed series fails to excite".

Track listing

Personnel

*Albert "

" Johnson – vocals, executive producer *William Madison "

Willie Willy or Willie is a masculine, male given name, often a diminutive form of William or Wilhelm, and occasionally a nickname. It may refer to: People Given name or nickname * Willie Allen (basketball) (born 1949), American basketball player and ...

" Taylor III – vocals (track 4) *Cameron "

" Thomaz – vocals (track 5) *Jabbar "Boogz Boogetz" Scott – vocals (track 8) *Kejuan "

" Muchita – vocals (track 11) *Esther – vocals (tracks: 13, 15) *Vaughn Anthony – vocals (track 14) *Clifford "

" Harris – vocals & producer (track 16) *Alan "

" Maman – producer (tracks: 1, 2, 6) *Tyrone Gregory " Ty" Fyffe – producer (tracks: 3, 14) *Eliot "

" Dubock – producer (tracks: 4, 12) *The Colombians – producers (track 5) *Lloyd "Young L" Omadhebo – producer (tracks: 7, 8) *SC – producer (tracks: 9, 10) *Joey Chavez – producer (track 11) *Tavish "Bravo" Graham – producer (track 11) *Valentino – producer (track 13) *Zam – producer (track 15) *Steve Sola – executive producer, recording (tracks: 1, 2, 6), mixing *Darrell Jones Jr. – recording (tracks: 3–5, 7–10, 12–14) *Eddie Sancho – mixing (tracks: 11, 15, 16) *Michael Scott Jones – photography

Charts

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2012 albums Sequel albums Prodigy (rapper) albums Albums produced by Ty Fyffe Albums produced by Beat Butcha Albums produced by Oh No (musician) Albums produced by the Alchemist (musician)