The Coup/Aceyalone
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
Everlast - Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
Danja Mowf - Word of Mowf
| Last Time: The Coup/Aceyalone |
|
Next Time: The Roots - Things Fall Apart Everlast - Whitey Ford Sings the Blues Danja Mowf - Word of Mowf |
|
|
| Artist: Prince Paul (and various guests) |
| Album: Prince Paul Presents A Prince Among Thieves |
| Genre: A Hip-Hop Musical (?!) |
| Producers: Prince Paul. |
| Tracks: 35, at about 77 minutes. |
| Label: Tommy Boy |
| Year of Release: 1999 |
|
Date of Review: March 19, 1999 |
| LYRICS: 8 |
| FLOW: 8 |
| MESSAGE: 9 |
| BEATS: 8 |
| ORIGINALITY: 10 |
| HYPE: 2 |
|
CONSISTENCY: 10 |
| SCORE: 83% |
Prince Paul has always been one bizzare cat. He proved this first with De La Soul in the late 80's and early 90's, when he produced their first three albums and was practically the fourth member of the group. With De La, Prince Paul revolutionized the art of sampling; of course, barriers has already been broken down by Public Enemy's Bomb Squad a few years earlier, but Paul dismissed their dense, multi-layered sound in favor of happy, silly tunes, filled with nonsensical pop culture references and samples that seemingly came out of nowhere. And, it worked; see "Eye Know" and other cuts off of De La's classic debut, Three Feet High and Rising, for proof. But non only did Prince Paul change the way rap beats sounded, he completely invented a whole new way to fill rap albums: the skit. 3 Feet High included a running game show joke, and today, (for better or for worse) nearly every rapper includes at least one or two skits on their albums.
Not that the skit was Prince Paul's only contribution to Hip-Hop. After breaking ties with De La Soul over creative differences (they produced their fourth album on their own), he joined up with Wu-Tang's RZA to form Gravediggaz and effectively create the Horrorcore subgenre. And everyone knows that the man knows how to hook up a mad ill beat: for examples of his work, check songs he laced for Stetsasonic, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions, and 3rd Bass. Still, though, it's the skit that may have been his greatest invention.
It's still the skit that's keeping him in business today, as well. A couple years back, after Paul split with Gravediggaz (their second album, without him, sounded like typical Wu-fair), he embarked on his most twisted journey yet: Psychoanalysis. The album, mostly a collection of skits and parody songs, was by no means great, but was something completely different. And, it did feature one incredible song, the demented "Beautiful Night," which extremely disturbed me with its portrayals of murder and rape, but was still very, very ill.
This time around, Paul comes more focused, with an album not full of random skits with a common theme (Psychoanalysis dealt with the inner reaches of Prince Paul's mind . . . leading many to believe that he's just plain sick), but with an album that pretty much can be explained as an hour-long skit; a play. Or, rather, a musical, since the skits are followed by actual rap songs.
When I first heard about A Prince Among Thieves, about a year ago, I was bugged. A rap musical?! It could be very good, or it could be just plain horrible, I decided. Thankfully, it's the former.
As stated, A Prince Among Thieves is a musical . . . the whole album is one big story. It goes from song to spoken word interlude to narration in the blink of the eye. Nothing like this has ever been done before . . . most Rock Operas (The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd's The Wall) are very vague, and anything similar that has been done in Hip-Hop has been on a much smaller scale (see Common's "Stolen Moments" trilogy). Prince Paul has achieved something here that has never been done, something that I never thought could be done.
Anyway, A Prince Among Thieves is the story of Tariq (no relation to The Roots' frontman), a hard-working young man who is aspiring to be a rapper. Newcomer Breezily Brewin plays the role. Well, Tariq has a meeting with the Wu-Tang Clan coming up, and to get a record deal from The RZA, he needs to cut a demo. But to cut the demo, he neeeds money. That's where True comes in.
True, played by Sha (another newcomer), is Tariq's "friend" who sets him up to make some money. Unfortunately, jealousy runs deep, and not all goes well. I don't want to give away any details of the plot, but let's just say that it's tragedy on an almost Shakesperean level. I'm not joking . . . Prince Paul does in the 1990's what the Bard did in the 16th century, mixing humor, tragedy, entertainment, and drama.
The plot itself is somewhat generic, and could have been expanded upon quite a bit (most true musicals are longer than an hour, I'm sure), but all in all, it's simple, but effective. Before it ends, you get to hear all kinds of crazy scenes, played by rappers who fit their roles PERFECTLY. A white rapper had to play the "Officer Bitchkowski" (the cop), and Everlast brings such animosity that you could swear you're listening to some redneck cop out there . . . I'm not trying to dis Everlast, I'm giving him props for putting himself into the part so completely. Big Daddy Kane hilariously parodies some of his more laughable material as "Count Macula" (the pimp). Chubb Rock assumes the role of "Mr. Large," (the crime boss/rap promoter) who brags with silly boasts like "www.i'mtheshit.com." And, most insane of them all, Kool Keith makes an appearance as "Crazy Lou" (the weapons dealer). He's a former Marine captain who was discharged for sexual misconduct with a deadly weapon. As you can probably guess, Crazy Lou is along the same lines as Dr. Octagon, Mr. Gerbik, Big Willie Smith, and Sinister 6000: a classic Keith Thornton character. It's a wonder that Paul and Keith had never worked together before, since the senses of humor of these two twisted geniuses are so similar. Almost all of the songs are first-person tales from the characters; the only two exceptions are songs by Horror City and De La Soul, where they pretty much just describe what's going on . . . it's actually REALLY dope, since you can completely picture Tariq runnin' around and dealing drugs when these songs start. Amazing.
Well, as much as I love the whole premise, I'd be lying if I said A Prince Among Thieves was filled with great rap songs. Most of these tracks are meant to tell a story, not get you moving. Play this album to a typical No Limit fan and they're likely to be bored to death. Still, though, I personally enjoyed a lot of these tracks. Kool Keith's "Weapon World" is absolutely great, and Everlast's reworking of a line from BDP's "Illegal Business" is very effective. I love the De La cut (it's just plain nice to see them working with Paul again), and everyone comes correct lyrically.
Well, this album is just crazy. Prince Paul is a genius, everyone has to give him that. A Prince Among Thieves is not without its flaws -- the actual songs could have been better, and the plot could have been more developed over two discs instead of one -- but, all around, this is something so new and refreshing, that you have to love it. No true Hip-Hop head should be without this album, as I'm sure it's going to be pointed back to for years to come.
---Steve Clark
Did I get it wrong? E-mail me at stevec@netnitco.net with all comments or questions you may have.
Go back to GHETTO MUSIC ONLINE.