• The Hold Steady will be in Atlanta, GA at the Variety Playhouse on August 30th; at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC on August 31st; at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC on Sept. 1st; and at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, VA on Sept. 2nd.
• Mavis Staples will appear at Seattle's Bumbershoot festival on Sept. 3rd and Das Racist will also appear at the festival on Sept. 4th.
• There will be a great lineup of comedians at Bumbershoot from Sept. 3rd to Sept. 5th, including Doug Benson (who will be recording an episode of "Doug Loves Movies"), Kyle Kinane, Scott Aukerman (who will be recording "Comedy Bang! Bang!"), Paul F. Tompkins and Eugene Mirman.
• Benson will also be appearing earlier in the week on August 29th at Hyena's in Ft. Worth, TX and on Sept. 1st at Helium in Philadelphia, PA.
• The Rock the Bells festival (which includes performances by Mobb Deep, Childish Gambino and Blu & Exile) will be coming to Governor's Island in New York on Sept. 3rd.
• Dr. Dog will perform on August 29th at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, RI; on Sept. 1st at the Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY; and on Sept. 3rd at the WHYY Connections Festival on Penns Landing in Philadelphia, PA.
• Tig Notaro, as usual, is keeping very busy. On August 31st, she will be at the Opolis in Norman, OK; on Sept. 1st she'll be at Press Bar in Kansas City, MO; and on Sept. 3rd at Firebirds in St. Louis, MO.
• Jonathan Coulton will be performing Sept. 2nd with Paul and Storm at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, GA. Looks like this will be his last show before launching his extensive fall tour with They Might Be Giants.
• Greg Proops will be recording his Smartest Man in the World podcast at the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival in Austin on September 4th.

Andy Kindler will be at the Playboy Comedy Lounge of the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas August 25th to 27th.

Bill Burr will be at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, NJ from August 25th to the 28th.

Colson Whitehead will be at the University of Wyoming in Laramie tonight, August 22nd.

Childish Gambino, Mobb Deep and Blu & Exile will be in Mountain View, CA as part of the Rock the Bells Festival at the Shoreline Amphitheater on August 27th.

Jackie Kashian and Maria Bamford will be performing at the Helium Comedy Club in Portland, OR on August 25th, 26th and 27th.

Jimmy Pardo will be at the Funny Bone in Virginia Beach, VA on August 25th-27th.

Kumail Nanjiani will be performing the Meltdown Show at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles on August 24th with Brent Weinbach, Jen Kirkman and Brett Gelman.

Marc Maron will be at Hilarities in Cleveland, OH on August 25th-28th.

Tig Notaro will be at the Tin Roof in Charleston, SC on August 24th and at the Calendonia in Athens, GA on August 25th.

Kevin McDonald and Scott Thompson will be performing Two Kids, One Hall at Zanies in Nashville on August 25th-28th.

Wyatt Cenac will be appearing at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse in Arlington, VA on August 26th.

Prodigy (aka Albert Johnson) is a Grammy Award-winning rapper. He and his collaborator Havoc founded the seminal hip hop duo Mobb Deep. His new autobiography is My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep's Prodigy.

Click here for a transcript or
Click here to stream or download the interview.

JESSE THORN: It's The Sound of Young America, I'm Jesse Thorn. My guest, Prodigy, is one of the fathers of hardcore hip hop. As a teenager in the early 1990s, he and his partner Havoc, found an East Coast answer to the emerging West Coast gangster sound. As Mobb Deep, their tone was dark, eerie, and minimal; and their lyrics cold and brutal. Let's take a listen to Prodigy's opening verse from Shook Ones Part II, the apical single from the apical record, The Infamous.

Prodigy was recently released from three years in prison on gun charges, and he's just put out an autobiography called My Infamous Life and a new free digital record called The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP.

Prodigy, welcome to The Sound of Young America, how are you?

PRODIGY: How you doing, man? Thank you, I'm doing good, I'm doing really good.