The Player Presidents

12/28/1999 9:00 PM, LAUNCH
Martine Bury

"My music is all for the kids," says Prince Paul, hip-hop's own wonderful Wizard of Oz. "As cool as ODB is [he said, "Wu-Tang is for the children"], he's been shot three times. The Handsome Boy lifestyle is a little less abusive on the body." Referring to his current project with Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Handsome Boy Modeling School's So... How's Your Girl?, young Paul Huston lets his commitment to music shine through the guise of what seems to be a schtick. Chest Rockwell (Huston) and Nathaniel Merriwether (Nakamura) might be two international playboys who decided to make the world more handsome with their ascots, beats, and rhymes, but it's Prince Paul's ruminations and collaborations that have turned the whole "underground vs. commercial" rap music debate into scrap by releasing high-concept albums with feeling.

An album which aims to cut through the artifice of commercial record-making with its skill, humor, and glamour, So...How's Your Girl? is Prince Paul and the Automator's way of breathing personality and vital fluids back into the music they grew up with. "We're here to make the world a more handsome place--a soundtrack for better living," says Merriwether/ Nakamura. "Hip-hop was a conduit for us to express ourselves as individuals."

As a member of the trail-blazing Stetsasonic, Long Island native Prince Paul made his production style known on the group's 1988 sophomore LP, In Full Gear. But the amalgam of loops from soul and funk classics, rare club tracks, breakbeats, and obscure stuff from the annals of pop culture on De La Soul 's seminal 3 Feet High And Rising became his signature sound and established him as a hip-hop icon. Since then, his work with Gravediggaz and his critically acclaimed solo projects, Psychoanalysis (What Is It?) and A Prince Among Thieves, have elevated his reputation as a highly evolved critic, comic, and serious soul brother. "I think people get tired of listening to the same old stuff," says Rockwell, speaking on Prince Paul's behalf. "There's a lot of money-big-music-industry-machine stuff behind what's out there today, regardless of genre." So in general, he prefers "making less stressful records like Handsome Boy Modeling School, because it's fun and serious--pure to me."

The HBMS record features guest appearances from an eclectic cast of creative souls: Sean Lennon, Money Mark, Father Guido Sarducci, Del The Funky Homosapien, and El-P of Company Flow, to name a few. "They were friends who inspired us because they're the epitome of the Handsome Boy lifestyle," says Merriwether. And what is the Handsome Boy lifestyle? "It's attitude, confidence, and grace," he explains. "We're models. But it's no different for a construction worker who gets his burrito at 7-11." There are even what Prince Paul dubs epochal plays on words like "magnetizing," which approximately means attracting, bonding, and being an all-around healing power force.

For the two hip-hop avant guardians, there's a lot of hot stuff out there that merits Handsome Boy props, like Dr. Dre's Dr. Dre 2001, Liberace, plaid clothing. and the Internet. "The Web's great. because by getting involved with music, everything blows wide open--chaos," says Rockwell. Independent distribution, MP3s, computer crashes--he's down for it all. And if you can't afford the Handsome Boy Modeling School's $60 enrollment fee, there are still ways to strut your original stuff. "I think our record and others show that people are finally standing up to applaud their own choices," he opines. His advice to all who want to live righteously and stylishly? "Anything that makes anything interesting is good."