Interview: Prince Paul
by Rondi Collins
photos by Peter Agoston
We haven’t reached the last days of hip hop like predicted and the art hasn’t shriveled but thrived on the roots created and nourished by artists like Prince Paul. Responsible for some of the earliest genre breaking innovations, his concept projects alone out number the entire careers of most musicians. Almost everything Paul does is labeled a concept, though his seemingly bizarre or revolutionary ideas are usually created as a result of self-expression. Portraying a variety of personalities over the years, from the youth of Stetsasonic to his latest reincarnation as the glam character of Handsome Boy, you’ll wonder if he is a nerd as self-proclaimed, or a weirdo as called byothers. His personal depth in addition to his comical and musical genius provide a truly entertaining and intriguing listen. Paul claims to be humble, and no trace of conceit can be heard in his voice or read in his words.
You really are an example of success in many ways, professionally independent, musically innovative and personally content.
Prince Paul: I’m all over the place. For example, people are like “Man, what have you been doing? I haven’t seen you in a while,” because usually people focus on one thing. Like they’ll either listen to all the alternative magazines, but fail to realize that I just put out the Chris Rock record, which is another genre. Or people look at Handsome Boy which is kinda called like alternative type hip hop stuff, and then fail to realize that I did a Sponge Bob record that the kids will know or maybe I did something more in the hip hop realm. My whole business is pretty secular so when people think I’m down it’s usually in a genre or something where they have no clue what I’m doing. I’m always working and I work under the radio. My quest for being famous, that’s done, you have to sell your soul which is… I don’t have time for that. You have to be at every club, “Hey man, how you doin?” Talk all the game. I like to do my work and go home. It’s very simple. It’s like punching a clock. Man, it’s fun to go home and be normal, whatever that is.
Even though, as he says, work is constant, he has maintained the choice to self-manage. This ability to conduct business according to his own standards has been central to his happiness: though his method of organization may not be visionary, his music has been and continues to be despite these non-musical distractions.
Some people have a manager, I have a school calendar. You know, the pre-published ones school gives you, with all the shaded areas for the days off. And I have it with me now. I carry it with me and that’s how I see my days and my weeks. I write everything on one of those because I cannot get my head around regular calendars. It would be nice to have somebody to deal with your stuff but it has to be someone you trust a hundred percent, I have yet to find that person, ’cause managers are crappy. I’ve had managers come up to me, this is very recently, telling me about how I should manage my business. It’s like man, if that’s your idea of a manager if you’re loosing money for your client, why should I get a manager? They’re ok, but I think it’s good to have insight and a handle on your business. I like having my business right in front of me, I like being able to do everything. And when it gets to a point where I just can’t handle it then I’m just too busy. I like being busy but I don’t want it where it overwhelms my life. I’m not all about working a hundred percent day in day out. I like a balance.
Professional balance is created through his work practices; personal balance is achieved through egalitarian beliefs.
I like to consider myself a grounded person. I’m pretty normal, I’m not Hollywood… it doesn’t fit my personality. I think for the most part I really just despise egotistical people and, even though Handsome Boy brings that out, which I think is funny, the irony of what I do makes it fun. But in the reality of how I live, I think of everyone as equal. Everybody is equal and I don’t believe in looking down on people. And a lot has to do with that, when you go out and you get in those circles, those people are really snobby. But you get the man on the corner who says hi to you every morning and you’re like uhhh, “Hi”. Say if Puffy comes down the street and you wave at him and he goes “eeeh”, and you go “oh my god that’s Puffy”, you give him so much more respect than the man who everyday says hi to you, who has nothing. I don’t believe in that, I believe in equality. I believe in people for what they are as opposed to what they have, and they’re very few people who think like that. I’m usually in a class by myself.
By working with Chris Rock and Handsome Boy he has inquired insight on both large labels and their indie counterparts. However, he has faced problems in both arenas, first during his time with Stetsasonic & later with Def Jam.
The thing about ‘Talkin’ All That Jazz’, we made that song when I was really young. I got my friend Newkirk to go and play keyboards on it and I programmed the beats. I look back and I didn’t get a writers credit nor did I get production credit on that album, cuz I didn’t know. I didn’t know a writer meant you could write music as well as lyrics, I thought it was just lyrics. And my group at the time, knowing better, never told me that. It’s mainly one of those things you learn in hindsight, so that’s why I don’t even follow that record because it kinda represents me being naïve at the time. I look at it and I think of that song as “You Big Idiot”, that should be the hook for me, but you live and you learn. After that I had a label with Def Jam for a little while, called Dew Doo man, in the early nineties. To me, it was a nice opportunity, but a very bad experience. In hindsight I am so glad that those things happened cuz it taught me about people, and the business and what my limits are as a person, you need those things to happen. People never wish bad on themselves, but you really need those things to grow.
Though a seeming opportunity had presented itself, Paul had been placed in a box that he needed to jump out of. His need for natural creativity was too great to suppress and the deal went sour.
I wasn’t making the records that they wanted me to make. That was [after] doing “Three Feet High and Rising”. For a second I was the-it-guy, Prince Paul, I was that producer that could do no wrong, for a split second in history. So in that split second I was getting approached by a lot of people and Def Jam and my management at the time said “hey, why don’t you do this label.” I kept on turning it down because I just wanted to produce. I said, “I’m just starting to learn about producing and being a producer”, “No do the label, do the label.” So finally I gave in because I thought it was a cool opportunity to make records with my friends like how I did De La, ‘I’ll just get my friends from the neighborhood’. Well apparently when I finished cranking out the songs I made, they were like, “We want a pop record”, “I don’t know how to make pop music”, “Well you did it with De La”. Well I stumbled on to that, I never formulated it. I couldn’t even look back and say, “This is what I did to make this record”, because all we did, we just had a good time in the studio laughing and that’s what I did this time because I don’t know any other way of making records. So I think that kind of made them discouraged in me and put me on the backburner. And I spent so much time on making these records and so little time pursuing a lot of production offers that where given to me.
He recycled this negative industry experience and the Gravediggaz sprang up in its place. After completing the Gravediggaz first album, “Six Feet Deep”, Paul’s negativity was diminished and he was ready to move on.
Oddly enough, that record sparked off a whole new career for me. It was uplifting; that enabled me to meet Chris Rock and work on his record. And Tommy Boy picked up the record and they’re like, “We like this, this is really bizarre. If there’s anything you want to do with us as far as other records we’re glad to sign you.” It just opened up like this, like me meeting Dan The Automator. It’s weird, the things you least expect.
This album is a blend of comedy and music, both playing an important role by complimenting and enhancing each other. Humor comes very naturally for him, in conversation as well as in music with laughter highlighting most sentences and all points.
I found something I did when I was a kid, I wrote about my brother, “My Skinny Brother and his Skinny Friend” and I drew illustrations, this is probably like the third or fourth grade. And I wrote, “My brother has lips as big as Nilla wafers, you lucky devil you” and for some reason my brother kept it and showed it to me a few years ago. And I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen, and it really just dawned on me, like I’ve been this way since I can remember. I like to be entertained, I like to laugh. And if that calls for me laughing and entertaining my own self with nobody else laughing around me, it’s what I do. Life is short man, enjoy it.
Even in the eighties, he was handed a DJ name that accommodated the future of hip hop.
People will try to act like they know me and call me Prince when obviously my name is Paul. When we formed Stetsasonic, my DJ name was DJ Paul and they said it was too bland and too boring and then they tried to put all this grand wizard stuff in front, and I was like “Noooo!”. One day they come up with an intro to a show, and they said, “And now Prince on the Wheels of Steel Grand Wizard Paul.” So we just cut out all the other crap, “Prince Paul will work”. I did that to make them happy, but if it was up to me? I’d be DJ Paul still. And now somebody else has that name, I think a Crunk guy, who introduced himself with Three Six Mafia or something, “Hey, I’m DJ Paul.” I’m like “Wow, thanks”. I coulda kept my old corny name.
Though he may think his name was corny, Prince Paul has been nothing but tasteful throughout his musical career.
I think before it’s all said and done, I really anticipate retiring in some form or fashion. I have, obviously the record with Peter coming out, I’ve got something totally different, which is “The Art of Picking Up Women” it’s like a DVD and an EP that I put out that’s pretty bizarre. It’s distributed by Studio, but I put it out with Mr. Len and his label Dummysmacks. I have more ideas than I have time. If I could formulate one home for everything, it may be sooner than later.
2005 “Instrumentals” (Female Fun)
2003 “Politics of the Business” (Razor and Tie)
1999 “A Prince Among Thieves” (Tommy Boy)
1996 “Psychoanalysis” (Wordsound)
