Prodigy, the hard-nosed Queens rapper who kiln-fired New York hip-hop into a thing of unhurried attitude and stoic elegance as half of the duo Mobb Deep, died on Tuesday in Las Vegas. He was 42.

His publicist, Roberta Magrini, said Prodigy had been hospitalized there, after a recent Mobb Deep performance, for complications of sickle cell anemia, for which he had been treated since birth. The cause of death had not yet been determined, she said.

Prodigy brought to his lyrics a no-nonsense personality and a vivid eye for detail in sometimes achingly poetic evocations of cruel street life in the Queensbridge housing projects. “I put my lifetime in between the paper’s lines,” he rapped on “Quiet Storm,” one of Mobb Deep’s most memorable songs.