Prince Paul

A hip-hop visionary who saw lots of flowers and DayGlo spray with De La Soul, Prince Paul was, is, and probably always will be strange. His production on De La’s 3 Feet High And Rising and supergroup Handsome Boy Modeling School remain his crowning achievements, but his solo work holds its own rewards. Paul’s musical expansiveness and goofy skits—which have come to define the modern concept album—live on in nearly every hip-hop release of the last 20 years. Paul’s new Negros On Ice is a lot of things—curiously named, a conceptual narrative about inner-city mayhem, a response to the Tea Party movement—but mostly, it’s a way to mend a formerly volatile relationship with his rapper son, P. Forreal.

Updated 12/15/2010