Prince Paul established his rep with Stetsasonic, horror-core pioneers Gravediggaz, and as sonic architect for De La Soul classics 3 Feet High and Rising and De La Soul Is Dead. His excellent solo efforts--1997's Psychoanalysis: What Is It? and 1999's A Prince Among Thieves-- foreshadowed his HBMS output. Paul's a skilled satirist with a keen eye for hiphop's foibles and absurdities, one of the few hiphoppers with the comedic sense or guts to send up a genre whose artists often unwittingly parody themselves. For his part, Nakamura's earned immortality for his work on Dr. Octagon's 1996 leftfield-hiphop gem, Dr. Octagonecologyst.
So… How's Your Girl? may be the last great quasi-hiphop concept album. With Chris Elliott of Get a Life handling comedic interludes about male models' preening narcissism, the work mostly encompasses the suave realms of triphop with various vocalists (Moloko's Roisin Murphy, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori) and MCs (Del, De La Soul, Brand Nubian) shining over the mongrelized funk backdrops. Then "Megaton B-boy 2000" appears, seemingly beamed in from another universe; guest producer Alec Empire pushes everything into the red with a cyclone of distorted bass and dystopian funk and El-P gives the mic circuit cancer with his bilious lyrics. WTF, indeed.
White People, however, makes Girl seem logical and unified by comparison. Paul and Dan must've been smashed on Hennessy when they sketched White People's blueprint. The credits read like a joker's wish list of obscure faded stars, current red-hot stars, and those thought to be forever dwelling in oblivion. The main steelo is magpie hiphop, but there's a much stronger rock vibe here, with cameos by Jack Johnson, Cat Power, Mike Patton, and members of Linkin Park, Deftones, Mars Volta, and Franz Ferdinand. Unlikely matches like Pharrell Williams and Julee Cruise, Barrington Levy and Alex Kapranos, John Oates and Jamie Cullum, and El-P and Chino Moreno don't always succeed, but even the failures are fascinating. For comic relief, Saturday Night Live's Tim Meadows hilariously lisps his way through the skits about hygiene and dating.
How HBMS will execute this music in a live setting remains a mystery, but it should be amusing watching their attempt. DAVE SEGAL
Handsome Boy Modeling School play Mon April 4 with Buck 65 and Rondo Brothers at the Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151, 8 pm-2 am, $20, 21+.