By A. Saeed  |  Send to Friend

When I think of perfect hip hop songs, a pretty specific set comes to mind. I’m a sucker for the boom-bap '90s product, so to look to that era is natural. No matter how many examples I can come up with at once, it’s hard to put my finger on what it is that makes a track great. For a format that adheres pretty strictly to a template, there exist many opportunities for injection of personal style. Assembling a track may have a standard procedure nowadays, but in the Golden Age there was no textbook. Before the internet flourished and music and software became for everyone, folks went on sound.

To me, the best and earliest example of true versatility is that of Prince Paul. From the very beginning, he had a knack for the thematic. After his emergence with Stetsasonic in the late 80’s, it’s hard to think of an album with his name on it that doesn’t in fact have some kind of theme or story following it through til the end. From 3 Feet High and Rising to his own Prince Among Thieves, his style adapted to the purpose of the album flawlessly every time. Over the course of De La’s evolution before they took over production on The Stakes is High, we heard a Paul changing with the times. The sample selection gradually went from schoolyard to street as the MCs changed their candor time and time again before finally parting ways with Paul. But his influence had shaped them, and it made a difference. Notice how much less weird in concept the later De La albums are. Now remember how weird the skits on De La Soul is Dead are. See?

The conceptual elements were always in his style, no matter the story. One would scarcely expect the transition from producing reformed hippies to producing evil, murdering demons of a new genre altogether. The Gravediggaz’ 6 Feet Deep dropped in ’94 with great listenability, something uncharacteristic of the horror core genre that their choice of content fell within. The almost Tom & Jerry violence in the lyrics was nailed into your speakers with a much darker Paul, who took the moniker Undertaker for the project. While 1997’s The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel was a less memorable album production wise, it showed growth, which is rare for a side project sequel.

 

’99 was a good year. Prince Among Thieves came out (and is the topic of another discussion altogether). The first Handsome Boy Modeling School album dropped and the less conspicuous side of hip hop got better. Again, the strangeness here seemed to be all Paul. While Automator is well wise to the hip hop theme album, when you hear “Modeling Just Sucks” and ask yourself “Why? Why am I listening to one reference from Get A Life! Over and over again?” and you know that it’s Prince Paul. The state of mind he was in for the Handsome Boy project led him into a collaboration that I consider one of the greatest of all time.

Now, I get a lot of shit for this every time I bring it up. I’d say that most people don’t understand it. It’s just too weird, dirty, goofy for most. But I maintain my belief that MC Paul Barman is one of the greatest lyricists alive and that he and Prince Paul were made for each other.

Killer duos of this variety don’t just happen. There are a few examples of excellence, all of which complement convention: Guru and Premier, Showbiz and AG, Common and Jay Dee (too many forget Like Water for Chocolate). The team of Pauls collaborated on It’s Very Stimulating, an exercise in ingenious futility. Barman has a way of saying inherently intelligent things in the most perverted way, and Prince delivers beats with impeccably selected samples that don’t dispense with the goofy. It works perfectly. This synergy culminated in a track called “Bleeding Brain Grow” on Barman’s only LP, 2002’s Paulleleujah. Chances that someone emulating this style will get big are slim to none, so this stands as an isolated set of occurrences, placing a diamond in the tooth of an era without much else to offer hip hop.