Prince Paul - Politics of the Business (May 6, 2003)

Producer Prince Paul, who I believe nobody will dispute is one of the best our chosen genre has ever offered up, toiled away for years on his magnum opus, the hip hop opera A Prince Among Thieves. That project was a logical extension of what he perfected behind the boards on both his own projects and others, including the first three De La Soul albums that are held in very high regard, combining engaging music with inspired samples and well-written (and goofily-performed, which is part of the charm) skits. He turned the project in to his label, Tommy Boy Records, in 1998, only to watch it sit on someone’s desk collecting dust for a year. The label claimed that it was trying to formulate a marketing plan for such a unique effort, but when A Prince Among Thieves was finally released in 1999, there was hardly a promotional push: hell, most people didn’t even realize that the album had finally dropped. As expected with that description, A Prince Among Thieves sold zero copies, and effectively ended Paul’s working relationship with Tommy Boy Records.

That experience of being jerked around by his employer while being told that his work was too inside baseball for the mainstream is what brings us to Politics of the Business.

Politics of the Business is Prince Paul’s third solo album, and is yet another concept album (this is just what the man does, folks), although this time around the theme is purposefully loose. Inspired by the meetings he took at Tommy Boy, Paul wanted to craft an album filled with songs that approximated the type of hip hop he heard every day on the radio (read: not the stuff he would normally produce) so that it could be promoted easily by any label he ended up with. Because a concept album about being upset that your previous label didn’t understand your last concept album isn’t too esoteric a theme, right? Paul secured a deal with Razor & Tie, a company that usually releases compilation albums and reissues, and is currently supported by the ridiculously huge sales numbers for the Kidz Bop series. But in the early 2000s, Razor & Tie wanted to branch out into releasing original material, and Paul found himself alongside a number of non-rap acts, which would have led me to believe that maybe they wouldn’t really have a handle on how to market what is ostensibly a rap album, but I’m not a recording artist, and I’m sure Paul thought the deal was good at the time.

To recreate his Tommy Boy experience while simultaneously shitting all over them (one could look at this entire project as a dis record in that way), Paul recruited a bunch of his more famous friends to lend their voices, just as he had on A Prince Among Thieves. There’s a lot of overlap between the two albums, although this time around the guest rappers weren’t asked to play roles: they’re merely just spitting cameo verses, just as they would on any other project. The catch is that, even though the idea of Politics of the Business was to satirize the music industry and what was popular in 2003, the guest list wasn’t necessarily made up of popular rappers, although a few of them did sneak into the building at times.

The Politicso f the Business promotional rollout was hampered a bit by rampant bootlegging of the project in 2002, which didn’t exactly create the buzz Paul was hoping for. Aside from an additional skit or two and a reorganization of songs, though, the advance is virtually identical to the final product we’ll be reviewing today, so please don’t feel left out. This isn’t a Murda Muzik situation. Regardless, Politics of the Business failed to move many units, dooming Prince Paul to a life toiling in the underground, surfacing occasionally to release critically-acclaimed works of art that nevertheless sell a negative number of copies. Which he has been doing, if we’re being real. At least this way we know we’re always getting Paul’s unfiltered artistic mind, right?

1. A DAY IN THE LIFE (FEAT. DAVE CHAPPELLE)
Back in the day (but not so much in the present), I always believed that Dave Chappelle would have been a good comedian for Paul to record a stand-up album with if (a) Chris Rock was unavailable, and (b) if he really wanted to make another one of those things in the first place. Hell, Dave even briefly appeared on Rock’s Roll With The New. So hearing him pop up on Politics of the Business makes me think that Paul somehow heard my request. The one I never made out loud. Whatever. To kick off this (very loose) story, A Star Is Born’s Dave Chappelle plays a record label executive who is excited about our host’s project, but quickly loses interest when it doesn’t move any units. Given the instrumental Paul recycles here, it isn’t a stretch to assume that Chappelle’s role is an amalgamation of every suit Paul had to work with as he was finishing up A Prince Among Thieves, although he never openly says that shit (on the album, anyway – he’s confirmed this through other outlets). Dave’s delivery is hilarious: I didn’t realize until today that some of his line readings are still stuck in my head from way back when I first picked up this album. Our host sprinkles in some other absurd details throughout this introductory skit, as only he can. This sets the right tone for the rest of the evening, even if the actual music kind of flails about wildly.

2. POPMASTER INTRO (FEAT. POPMASTER (A/K/A THE BLACK ITALIANO))

I’m not entirely sure why the Popmaster character received his own slot for what is the second rap album intro in as many tracks, as all he does, by his own admission, is just “say stupid shit”. I assume Paul thought it was funny, and what he says, goes.

3. MAKE ROOM (FEAT. MALLY G, ERICK SERMON, & SY SCOTT)

If you were in the market for a Prince Paul beat that was available to impersonate Erick Sermon’s production style for children’s parties, well, I’m not even sure why you’re on the hunt for something that oddly specific, but “Make Room” will be your jam regardless. Paul takes a more-than-credible stab at E-Double’s blueprint, his mimicry on the precipice of parody here, while adding in just enough of his own flourishes so that you remember who’s actually running the show. It’s uncanny. But while I appreciated the fact that Sermon brought Mally G to perform on “Make Room”, neither man sounds like their heart is in it, and both seem bored by the music, which is louder than they are. However, although you were likely disappointed that neither Redman nor Keith Murray were invited to the party, Sermon’s boy Sy Scott turns in the best fucking performance I’ve ever heard from him. He kills this shit, ferociously spitting his bars as though that crystal implanted in his hand just turned black and he knows there’s no way out now. Scott is worth listening to the track for all by himself, no lie.

4. THE DRIVE BY

I’ve always loved how Paul will sometimes throw his older work into his skits, which are still the best (and the most finely crafted) in the game. It creates a semblance of a Prince Paul cinematic universe, and I hope he continues doing this in the future. You won’t really need to hear this particular interlude more than the once, but you’ll still probably smirk and/or chuckle at the outcome.

5. SO WHAT (FEAT. KOKANE, MASTA ACE, & PRETTY UGLY)

While “Make Room” was clearly a Def Squad showcase, “So What” is on the opposite end of the Prince Paul spectrum, where random artists are thrown together and forced to make it work. And this song does work. “So What” is underscored by a rubberband bass loop that propels Masta Ace, Kokane, and Pretty Ugly forward, with Kokane handling both the chorus and the opening verse in his sing-rap G-Funk style, while Ace and Pretty Ugly bring forth the boasts-n-bullshit. All of the ingredients click, as well: Ace walks away with this song, but not without some stiff competition from Ugly, whose slick confidence man shit-talk upsets the balance of the universe, which is supposed to be a compliment somehow. “So What” is nice, and nobody seems to know it even exists, so have at it, you two.

6. DRAMA QUEEN (FEAT. DAVE & TRUTH ENOLA)

This one doesn’t work at all, though, which sucks, as it features a member of the group Paul has been most closely associated with ever since he left Stetsasonic, De La Soul. Truth Enola and Trugoy the Dave (not a typo) rap about the titular subject each has in their respective lives, essentially holding the women responsible for the relationships failing, refusing to take any of the blame (for the most part, anyway – Truth Enola cops to drinking a lot to forget about his partner’s contradictory voicemails, which I suppose could be read as him owning up to that, at least). “Drama Queen” doesn’t play well in the present environment, but even in 2003 I thought it was fucking terrible: both guests spin their wheels lyrically, and Paul’s instrumental sounds so weak. I also thought it was a weird move on our host’s part to sample a line from a De La project he had no part in constructing, Stakes Is High, although I admit that’s just a nerdy-ass nitpick on my part. Sigh.

7. NOT TRYIN’ TO HEAR THAT (FEAT. GURU & PLANET ASIA) / WORDS (ALBUM LEAK) (FEAT. WORDSWORTH)

The late Guru and Planet Asia team up for “Not Tryin’ To Hear That”, on which their boasts-n-bullshit elevate the decent-yet-simplistic Prince Paul beat to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Guru is in elder statesman mode, speaking matter-of-factly about what he’s done for the game, but the real star on here is Asia, who obviously felt the need to prove himself worthy to be a part of the song in the first place. He destroys Paul’s beat, attacking fake rappers and record labels left and right. (Interestingly enough, the bootleg advance blanks out all of Asia’s label name-dropping, but the proper release leaves in Landspeed Records while censoring everything else. Hmmm…) The audio track ends with a voicemail from rapper Wordsworth, who wonders if Paul was aware that Politics of the Business has leaked. That was definitely not a part of the advance, folks.

8. POLITICS OF THE BUSINESS (FEAT. CHUCK D & ICE-T)

Two separate conversations with Chuck D and Ice-T, respectively, chopped up into an interlude where both hip hop legends warn up-and-comers that the music industry isn’t designed to help them in any way. It’s an important lesson to learn, especially if you want to be a part of the game, but maybe it should have been given in a more straightforward manner.

9. ORIGINAL CRHYME PAYS (FEAT. TASH, THE BEATNUTS, & TONY TOUCH) / RAPLH NADER (FEAT. MR. LEN)

Is Politics of the Business the birthplace of the LikNuts, the team-up of The Beatnuts and Tha Alkaholiks that has yet to produce their long-promised joint album? Who knows, but Tash shares the stage with both Juju and Psycho Les (along with longtime Beatnuts superfan-slash-collaborator DJ Tony Touch) over Prince Paul’s uncharacteristically plain-vanilla instrumental. It still manages to hit hard, mind you, but this could just be due to its sheer volume in my earbuds. That awkward song title is a reference to how this isn’t the version of the song from the bootleg advance, I guess, even though there are much better ways to convey such information. Anyway, Tash, one of my longtime favorite underappreciated rappers, turns in the best verse, while I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by the bland maybe-homophobia during Lester’s verse (“You don’t wanna fuck with me unless you’re a gay guy” – thoughts?) or amused by the fact that the man clearly knows that there are no women out there who listen to The Beatnuts. Juju and Toca also appear. DJ Mr. Len pops in during the ending interlude to complain about being asked to perform at a Ralph Nader campaign rally, which was kind of funny.

10. WHAT I NEED (FEAT. KARDINAL OFFISHALL & SLY BOOGIE)

I thought Paul’s instrumental was pleasant, but otherwise, nah.

11. PRINCEPAULONLINE.COM / THE WORD (FEAT. DJ PREMIER)

One of my very favorite Paul skits is the overly-silly “Princepaulonline.com”, where half of the fun is picking out the voices of some of our host’s past collaborators. (Chris Rock and Big Sha of Horror City/ A Prince Among Thieves are easier to discern. Collect them all!) This track ends with a monologue from DJ Premier that was originally its own audio track on the bootleg: as he is decrying wack emcees (again, sigh), you’ll already know what he’s going to say even if you skip over his antics straight to…

12. CONTROVERSIAL HEADLINES A/K/A CHAMPION SOUND (PT. 1) (FEAT. HORROR CITY) / MY BOOKIE

I know on my very first listen this song had me thinking, “What the fuck?”, even though I understood what Paul was aiming for,. The problem is that the shit just doesn’t work, and it still won’t: it isn’t controversial, nor is it a “Champion Sound”. Putting Horror City over a smoothed-out bland-as-fuck instrumental won’t suddenly gain them mainstream acceptance, and it’s almost impossible to tell that our host is ramping up the satire here, as everyone plays it so goddamn straight-faced. Which is to Horror City’s credit, technically: at least they were game for whatever Paul was up to at the time. But it doesn’t help matters that this song is boring as hell. Ugh.

13. BEAUTIFULLY ABSURD (FEAT. W. ELLINGTON FELTON)

The previous track ended with a skit (again, originally isolated on its own audio track) where Paul’s girlfriend runs off to cheat on him, which leads us to “Beautifully Absurd”, a song title that also accurately describes our host’s finest work. If you didn’t already know what Paul was trying to achieve on Politics of the Business, though, this song will throw you for a loop, as it’s sung by guest W. Ellington Felton over acoustic guitar strings and some slabs of old-school hip hop, a combination that somehow works. Felton croons pleasantly about failed relationships and also performs a brief rap toward the end, and all the while the listener is left wondering just how they weren’t aware that Prince Paul was capable of left turns such as this. Entertaining as hell. (Paul also seemed to know he was on to something here, as “Beautifully Absurd” is roughly a minute longer on here than it was on the bootleg advance.)

14. CONTROVERSIAL HEADLINES A/K/A CHAMPION SOUND (PT. 2) (FEAT. HORROR CITY & JEAN GRAE)

More of the same shit, except the instrumental mimics old-school hip hop traits, and guest star Jean Grae stops by to steal the show. Shit still doesn’t work, though.

15. CHUBB ROCK CAN YOU PLEASE PAY PAUL HIS $2200 YOU OWE HIM (PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS) (FEAT, CHUBB ROCK, WORDSWORTH, & MF DOOM)

I spoke too soon with that J-Zone write-up: this is the best song title to ever grace the pages of HHID. The story behind it isn’t a very funny one, though: apparently Chubb Rock really does owe Prince Paul $2,200, the amount our host was allegedly scammed out of, after which Chubb skipped town. Paul says he changed the song’s title (it was just called “People, Places and Things” on the advance) so that every time Chubb Rock tried to Google himself, that reminder would pop up (which is hilarious), and even went so far as to offer to split the money with anyone who could successfully convince Chubb Rock to pony up (see: the new voicemail Paul added to the beginning). But what about the song itself, though? It’s fucking great, that’s what. Paul reuses the same sample source that helped him craft the beat to De La Soul’s “Pease Porridge” for Chubb, Wordsworth, and MF DOOM to spit over, and they do so fantastically, abandoning the album’s concept in favor of esoteric verses that name-drop a bunch of random hip hop shit. Chubb and Words sound great, but DOOM blacks the fuck out, delivering possibly the best verse I’ve ever heard from the man. The story around the title may suck, but this song certainly does not.

16. A LIFE IN THE DAY (FEAT. DAVE CHAPPELLE)

A quickie outro with Dave Chappelle leaves the listener feeling as though the entire vicious cycle Paul just put us through will begin again, mostly because that is exactly what our host is saying when he reuses a sound bite from the intro. But still.

At around the two-minute-and-nine-second mark, Prince Paul reappears, upset that we’re still listening to the album when it has clearly finished. After securing that Ferris Bueller-after-the-credits realness, Paul and Biz Markie, who I guess was just there for some reason, promise two additional songs, but nothing further.

CHRHYME PAYS (REMIX) (FEAT. TASH, THE BEATNUTS, & TONY TOUCH)

This is the version that appeared on the bootleg advance. The lyrics remain unchanged, buit the instrumental; is more buoyant, if not exactly “better”.

THE WAY MY LIFE SEEMS (FEAT. BLACK ICE, TRÉ, & FATLIP)

Formerly known as simply “My Life”, “The Way My Life Seems” reunites two members of The Pharcyde while dismissing the album’s entire theme in favor of actual substance, record sales be damned. Paul’s instrumental approaches experimental G-Funk as Black Ice, Slim Kid Tre, and Fatlip strip away the facade, revealing that rappers are just fallible human beings. The beat was nice, but the verses were mostly inconsequential, and delegating this to a hidden bonus track afterlife lends it a level of credence that it wouldn’t have earned otherwise.

DJ Jazzy Jeff appears at the very end of the audio track to ask the listener exactly why they haven’t turned the album off yet, after which everything finally fades to black.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Politics of the Business ultimately doesn’t work as a piece of satire. For one thing, a lot of it isn’t really that funny (some of the skits and interludes aside), as the songs are missing Prince Paul’s sense of humor behind the boards. I understand what he was trying to do, and stripping away what makes Paul Paul was part of the idea, but who the fuck wants to listen to a Prince Paul album where he’s deliberately trying to make himself sound terrible? It also doesn’t help that a lot of the tracks don’t sound terrible enough: there are some bangers on here (see the songs listed below), but nothing on Politics of the Business would ever play on the radio alongside the popular hits of 2003, and wasn’t that supposed to be what this album was about, Paul? It isn’t that the satire will fly over everyone’s head – it’s more like Paul’s insistence on beating you with a sledgehammer at the beginning of the album disrupts your ability to sit and enjoy this one. By taking on the music industry, Prince Paul inadvertently settled into a comfortable groove, turning in half-assed hip hop as a statement on our chosen genre at the time, and let’s be real, bad music is just bad music: if you’re making a terrible song as a commentary on terrible songs, you still made a terrible song, and the “joke” only lasts so long. There’s little wonder why Politics of the Business is the least-loved project in Paul’s oeuvre. While I feel there are some songs that are entertaining enough, nothing on this album is required listening for Prince Paul fans, which is a depressing sentence to write. Which is likely why Paul himself felt the need to revisit the album fourteen years later, but we’ll get there when we get there.

BUY OR BURN? This one is uncomfortable for me, but I’m only going to recommend a burn. The songs that hit do so beautifully, and I’m always going to be a Prince Paul stan, but this is his worst solo album, and he doesn’t fit his own theme as well as he may have once thought.

BEST TRACKS: “Beautifully Absurd”; “Chubb Rock Can You Please Pay Paul His $2200 You Owe Him (People, Places and Things)”; “So What”; “Not Tryin’ To Hear That”

-Max

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