Prince Paul Gets Political

Prince Paul's third solo record, Politics of the Business, sees the hip-hop maverick trading in his sample-based style for a new sound he calls "millennium jiggy." The set, due May 6th, features guests including Ice-T, Erick Sermon, Chuck D and Chris Rock.

Based on the booty-bass beats and minor-key synths that inhabit new tracks "Make Room" and "So What," the jiggy sound owes more to the Neptunes than to Paul's work with Dan the Automator in Handsome Boy Modeling School.

"It's fast-food music," Paul told Rolling Stone half-jokingly, though he does insist the more commercial styles works as a commentary on hip-hop's "follow the leader" mentality. "What everybody would least expect me to do is what everybody else does."

DAVE PEISNER
(March 21, 2003)