Dirty Martini -- Troy Ave Feat. Prodigy: The Guilty Pleasure Edition Vol. II (Video)

If anybody read Prodigy's recently released autobiography, they probably remember the multiple passages in which he remorsefully writes about his negative past and his pledges to change his life in order to set a better example for his family and live a righteous existence.

Well, if his lyrics from this [and many of his other post-prison releases) are to believed, you can throw all of that out of the window.

From the first moment we see Prodigy in the video, his face is flush with his signature fed-up-looking scowl, waving and pointing his right hand around in a gun-like motions toward the camera. Wasn't his three-year bid because of gun possession? But I digress...

All the while the video is replete with imagery of Bed Stuy rapper Troy Ave flaunting his apparent wealth in front of hungry onlookers on his way to selling what appear to be kilos of cocaine out of a dingy apartment.

Prodigy is then shown holding his two palms together under his chin, eyes toward the heavens, rapping, "I'm three months home, I'm feeling good to be alive!"

Just a few bars later, though, he says that he does "bear arms like a wife beater, no Ike."

All of that followed by an ingenious hook:

Finishing my work, leaving out my spot
I punch niggas in they face, but I don't punch clocks
Before I hit the crib, I'ma make a stop
And order me a dirty martini on the rocks

It's a sad state of affairs for Prodigy right now; being relegated to these two-bit collaborations, nonstop talk of the Illuminati, all while being shunned by his one-time peers who were most likely put off by all the information of criminal activity supplied in Prodigy's tome.

He's also no longer signed to G-Unit and his recording home is up in the air.

HNIC 3 is in the works, according to his Wiki page, but after its predecessor -- rushed because of an impending prison sentence -- fell well short of expectations, I'm not really sure how big a demand there is for that. (For the record, the first HNIC installment is near classic status.)

His digital album released this year, The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP, sounded incohesive at best, and its production was only marginal despite the inclusion of beats from The Alchemist, among other notable producers.

It will be interesting to see if he can turn his career around; a career that includes several classic singles and a Grammy, accomplishments that cannot be ignored when discussing Prodigy. But as long as he embraces that stale gangsta rap persona that has clearly fallen on deaf ears as of late, his stock will probably continue to drop.

I'm wishing him luck.