Prince Among Thieves by Prince Paul

Nothing to watch on youtube ? Watch CourtAppointed :
http://www.youtube.com/user/CourtAppointed#p/u

Released in 1999 on Tommy Boy Music.

Prince Among Thieves is a hip hop concept album written, produced, arranged, scored and hustled by Prince Paul. Prince Paul is DJ / producer from New York. He's worked with a long laundry list of hip hop personalities, like De La Soul, 3rd Bass, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Stetsasonic and Gravediggaz.

This is a skit heavy album that tells the tragic story of a rising MC, named Tariq (Breezly Brewin') who needs to scrape together 1000$ to pay for a session with The Wu Tang Clan he has in 48 hours. He hooks up with his friend True (Big Sha) who gets him to start selling drugs. The meet up with a weapons dealer (Kool Keith), a pimp (Big Daddy Kane), gang leader (Chubb Rock), crooked cop (Everlast), convicts (Xzibit, Sadat X, Kid Creole). RZA is also on here and he plays himself. De La Soul and Chris Rock play a group of crackheads.

The songs on here are, for the most part, fairly decent. Highlights include Steady Slobbin', Mc Hustler, Weapon World, More Than U Know and Handle Your Time. Prince Paul's beats are fairly engaging and creative. Prince Paul has always been a guy to keep his music fun and interesting.

The amount of skits on here do detract from the album. It would have been been well advised to let the songs tell the story and keep the narration to a minimum. With the wealth of gifted rappers here, that shouldn't have been a problem. The album does have a strong cinematic vibe and also has many comedic moments, the album remains fairly inaccessible due to the overuse of skits and dialogue. Skits also add needlessly to the album's length.

All in all, this album is entertaining and when the songs do play, they are very well produced and thought out. No rapper tries to outshine another and everything does gel very well. It is an album you have to sit down and listen to, doesn't make for good background music. If your a big hip hop fan or want a piece of hip hop history, you should check this out.

3.4/5

Sub to CourtAppointed:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CourtAppointed#p/u

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Prince
• paul
• among
• thieves
• More
• than
• know
• Handle
• your
• time
• Pain
• Steady
• slobbin'
• Macula's
• theory
• War
• party
• Room
• 69
• The
• Bust
• Weapon
• world
• Other
• line
• album
• review

[rickyshore]

thanks for the plug!!! you're awesome! hahahaha i can't believe you did this record!!! i saw the cover in my subs box before i knew it was your video and then i was like, "phil did a video about prince among thieves???" hahahaha i bought this record before it came out at this bootleg place. this record is still awesome maybe... maybe haha. i can still hear the ice cube song in my head. daddy kane's track is bomb. haha yeah right this will ever be a movie... this and bobby digital.

[YoureWrongImRight]

I have alot of Prince Paul shit. CourtAppointed is awesome. The Ice Cube song is fucking wild. I don't think this needs a movie though.

[theneedledrop]

A "hip hopera", I think it's called.

From the background music, this sounds like there's some cool 80s influences on this.

Sorry to hear about the skits. They might break up the LP, but are they corny?

[YoureWrongImRight]

Ummm... not overly corny. Some are. The skits aren't 100% necessary is what the problem is.

But a lot of the songs have a nice 80's flavor to them. Lot's of clever and well thought out rhymes on here. They didn't half ass in the music department whatsoever.

[MellowChaos]

@sharmark

YES - it is!

[MellowChaos]

Wow dude. So far I see that you've reviewed Marilyn Manson's 'Portrait' and now 'Prince Among Thieves' ! Two great albums, both very important and meaningful to me in different ways, both classics. Great job on both reviews. I can't wait to see what else is in your CD collection.

[dustindo]

Pretty good, may ass... You're Wrong, I'm Right.

[dustindo]

decent album, my ass....

[sharmark]

This is one of the hottest concept albums ever in ANY genre. Yeah I said it. :/

[chestveeg]

This was a awesome CD it reminds me of A Long Hot Summer by Masta Ace . I really like the song with Kool Keith ,When he said "fazers with Mac 10 handles " .

[WillMillion15]

Great review. Subscribed.