Underground "Handsome Boys" Group Awaits Discovery
Susan
Harmon
Managing Editor
Taking their name from an episode of the cult Chris Elliott sitcom "Get a Life", quirky super-producers Prince Paul and Dan “The Automator” Nakamura adopted the stylish alter egos of Chest Rockwell and Nathaniel Merriweather forming Handsome Boy Modeling School. HBHS parodies and acts as a commentary on vain, consumerist, materialistic and self-absorbed members of upper class society, which brings comedy to their group name Handsome Boys Modeling School.
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Selling over 150,000 copies of their 1999 album “So How’s Your Girl?” their 1999 single “The Projects” in collaboration with Trugoy, De La Soul and Del tha Funkee Homosapien was featured in the 2001 film Ocean's Eleven. Five years after their album’s debut, fans of HBMS screamed for more.
With a magical group of special guests, HBMS once again dazzled their audience collaborating with Gorillaz, Blur’s Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, Coo Matto’s Miho Hatori and former Talking Heads Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth in their 2004 album “White People.”
Member and producer Prince Paul began his career as a DJ for Stetsasonic and lent his skills to albums by Boogie Down Productions, Gravediggas, MC Lyte, Big Daddy Kane and 3rd Bass. Paul’s break came when he produced De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising album. Breaking the rules of hip-hop, Paul integrated funk and comedy to create a new era for hip-hop. In 1994, Paul began working with an underground rap group and recruited Dan “The Automator.”
“Rock and Roll Could Never Be Hip Hop Like This Part 2” from Handsome Boy Modeling School’s 2004 album “White People” blends spoken word, hip hop, classical backbeats and techno riffs. The beginning of the track’s spoken word sums up their feelings on hip hop by saying, “Hip hop is universal. It just depends on what you do. Hip hop is what you call the bastard child of a lot of forms of music. We didn’t have any hip hop beats back in the days. We had to take it from everywhere we could get it from. Rock is a big part of hip hop. Rock influenced hip hop, hip hop helped influence the world.”
After the insightful words of the origin of hip hop and its influence on the music of today, rapping continues to bring deep feelings on the evolution of hip hop. In one stanza, the words “Repeating and repeating your a thug'd out gangsta, PIMP 'til ya believe it, seems like there's too much Pac, we don't need it” relays the shallow judgment by some people that hip hop music stands for gangs, cop killing and overly sexual notions and those judgments fall short on the true meaning of hip hop music.
To view HBMS’s “Rock and Roll Could Never Be Hip Hop Like This Part 2,” please click here.
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