Handsome Boy Modeling School
So... How's Your Girl?
- Released
- 2022
- Format
- Vinyl, LP, Album, Record Store Day, Reissue
- Label
- Tommy Boy · TB-1258-0
- Rating
- 9/10
ElectronicHip HopRock Cut-up/DJDowntempoIndie RockConscious
View on Discogs ↗ Related titles
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Handsome Boy Modeling School White People White People is the second Handsome Boy record — same project, more sprawling, with RZA appearing to close the Prince Paul–Wu-Tang loop explicitly. -
DJ Shadow Endtroducing... Dan the Automator built Endtroducing in his San Francisco home studio — the same Dan who is half of this record. The Handsome Boy records and Endtroducing share a physical origin point. -
Wu-Tang Clan Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) Prince Paul formed Gravediggaz with RZA in 1994 — the year before Wu-Tang's debut. Handsome Boy and Wu-Tang are one degree apart through Prince Paul and RZA simultaneously.
Chest Rockwell (Prince Paul) and Nathaniel Merriweather (Dan the Automator) named their project after a 1992 episode of the Chris Elliott sitcom Get a Life, in which the host character attends a modelling school. Prince Paul is the producer who made De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, introduced the rap-album skit, formed Gravediggaz with RZA. Dan the Automator is the producer in whose San Francisco home studio — the Glue Factory — Josh Davis made Endtroducing… Dan’s stated formative influences are Kraftwerk and old-school hip-hop — which, combined, describe this record pretty accurately.
So… How’s Your Girl? (1999) operates on a principle of escalating absurdity applied to the full available roster of hip-hop’s star system. The gag never gets old because the record keeps committing to it — every guest appearance treated with the same straight-faced Chest Rockwell grandeur as every other. This is Prince Paul’s brain in abbreviated form; White People (2004) is his brain in full expansion.