These are the transcripts of an interview with Prince Paul on DJ Hyphen & J. Moore's "Sunday Night Sound Session" on Seattle's KUBE 93.3 FM. For more info. on DJ Hyphen click here.
MVRemix: Introduce yourself.
Prince Paul: Hello, my name is Prince Paul - the Hip Hop legend. [chuckles]
MVRemix: You could even get business cards printed up that say that stuff... First and foremost, the question that everyone wants to ask you - has Chubb Rock paid you your money?
Prince Paul: No he has not! And if anybody sees Chubb Rock and are able to extract the $2200 he owes me, I will split half with you. How's that? That's a good commission.
MVRemix: Wow. So it's still the $2200? He hasn't chipped in $100 here and there?
Prince Paul: Nah, he plans on never ever paying me and I've come to live with that. That's why I put that out - if I can get the money, I'll give you half!
MVRemix: Alright, half the people in our audience don't know what you're talking about so the back story on this one just in case?
Prince Paul: He jerked me and a whole bunch of friends out of a whole lot of money. He conned me which I'm equally as to blame because I fell for the shenanigans, but hey - I'm here at Scion today! So that's all that counts. I'm making the money back today that he owes me.
MVRemix: So you're known in a lot of different ways as an innovator on the production side of things, but also a couple of things on a historical level in terms of introducing the skit in Hip Hop. How did that come about? Were you guys in the recording process and just making an album - what brought that about?
Prince Paul: The whole skit thing, we was at the end of sequencing "3 Feet High and Rising" and I needed a way to piece the record together, because I was having a problem with listening to rap records during that time. You couldn't distinguish with what emcee - who was who on some records. I was like, "Well I want to make it distinctive of everybody's personality with who they are." I thought what better way to do it than let's make a game show! In the middle of sequencing we just made the engineer the game show host and we're the contestants, because back then with the game shows you had to describe who you were and what you liked, and so that was the whole gist of it. I mean I never thought that people would actually like it and duplicate it. It was just something to piece the record together.
MVRemix: And just abuse it and do it no justice [chuckles]
Prince Paul: It's just horrible, it's nasty.
MVRemix: Yeah, 'cause these days it has really gone too far with the message machine skits and whatnot. What would be your advice for people to make a good skit? How would you do it?
Prince Paul: You take a portion of your budget and hire me [chuckles]. That would be rule #1. Rule #2 would be take a portion of your budget and hire me [chuckles]. I mean, no, realize if you need it. Don't do it for the sake of doing it, do it because you need it on your record and that's the only reason why I even attempted to do it with De La Soul - 'cause they really needed it. You don't have to have it. It's not a staple.
MVRemix: No doubt, well speaking of some of the records you do. Everyone wants to know if there's gonna be a follow up of the project you did with Automator, or what else are you working on at that moment?
Prince Paul: Nah, nah, I mean I broke up from Handsome Boys last year. I mean I would like to, but when it comes to - it's a lot of financial things. When you think Handsome, you can't do that on a thin budget man. You need money for clothes and things, yeah wardrobe, make up and...
MVRemix: Oh yeah, ask Kanye...
Prince Paul: [chuckles] That's messed up. No, no comment man, I'm here to talk about myself...
MVRemix: And Scion...
Prince Paul: Yeah, and Scion. But no, honestly the money thing just didn't work out. It's a long story. I wish he was here, we could finally iron it out. He's avoiding me!
MVRemix: If we could get him and Chubb Rock in the same room we'd be doing good...
Prince Paul: Know what I mean, he's avoiding me! Talk to me! We could put the group back together!
MVRemix: Besides that, what about new stuff coming up in the future?
Prince Paul: Bernie Worrel which me and my friend Donald Newkirk, we're working on an album for him. For people that don't know, he's the keyboard player that used to play for Parliament Funkadelic, Flashlight and all them other great records that... All the stuff that you hear Dre copy, that's... I mean not out of disrespect, just as a reference. That's Bernie Worrel. I'm learning a lot - it's like college for free. That's how I see it. I'm learning stuff that I never knew existed in music so that's a good thing.
MVRemix: Is there any ghost production that you've ever done that you can now reveal?
Prince Paul: No. No, there's some production I'd like to take back that I've done. I'm like ungh... But nothing...
MVRemix: Anything that you've not been credited for?
Prince Paul: Oh, "Talkin' All That Jazz" - me and Newkirk. Newkirk played the keyboards, I programmed the beat, looped up the beats and stuff and I think Delight from my group, from Stet[asonic] got credit. So go figure man. I was young, I was what? 17 when I made that record.
"Sunday Night Sound Session" with DJ Hyphen and J. Moore airs every Sunday night on KUBE 93.3 FM (Seattle) from 11 PM PST - Midnight.
