Prince Paul

An extremely innovative producer with an astounding discography behind him, Prince Paul is the mad genius behind some of hip-hop's most landmark work. His production style on De La Soul's 1989 debut 3 Feet High and Rising drew from a wide variety of musical sources. The album was the first to expand the depth of sampling capabilities, perfectly mingling sounds not usually associated with hip-hop. It was also one of the earlier examples of skits on records, a trend followed by practically every hip-hop artist in the 1990s.In 1994, along with the RZA, Fruitkwan and Poetic, Paul created the Gravediggaz, a conceptual supergroup whose experimental sound was soon dubbed "horrorcore." He closed the '90s by dropping his solo debuts Psychoanalysis: What Is It? and the cinematic A Prince Among Thieves, while also hooking up with the Automator (another superproducer) and a gang of cutting-edge artists for the genre-bending Handsome Boy Modeling School's So How's Your Girl. With work on over forty albums under his belt, Prince Paul has consistently changed the rules of hip-hop, furthering its evolution with his startlingly original vision and sound.