Happy 25th Anniversary to Handsome Boy Modeling School’s debut album So…How’s Your Girl?, originally released October 19, 1999.
The collaborative album has become a mainstay within hip-hop music. It usually consists of two producers, or one producer and one rapper, joining together to record an entire project. Most of the time, it’s the product of the collaborators having so much in common that a joint album is logical. But at other times, it falls into the “It’s so crazy that it just might work!” category.
Although the trend really developed with Madlib and Jay Dee’s Champion Sound (2003) or Madlib and MF DOOM’s Madvillainy (2004), one of the first of these partnerships was Handsome Boy Modeling School. Comprised of “Prince” Paul Huston and Daniel “The Automator” Nakamura, the duo’s debut album So…How’s Your Girl? falls into the former category, since each producer has a decorated history of providing material decidedly left of center, but still anchored in uniquely hip-hop sensibilities.
Prince Paul is of course one of the principal architects of golden age hip-hop crews Stetsasonic and De La Soul. As the ’90s progressed, he became one of the members of Gravediggaz and began to record his own creatively outlandish solo material. Dan The Automator had begun producing independent hip-hop in the mid 1980s, but became a known factor with the release of Dr. Octagon’s debut LP Dr. Octagonecologyst (1996), a project with him, former Ultramagnetic MC Kool Keith, and turntable wizard DJ Q-Bert. He also released a mostly instrumental solo EP a few years earlier than So…How’s Your Girl?
Handsome Boy Modeling School was actually born out of an off the cuff joke by Dan The Automator. Weirdoes at heart who shared an oddball sense of humor, he and Paul had known each other for years prior to collaborating. Later they bonded over a love of comedian Chris Elliot, of all things. They were both fans of his appearances of David Letterman’s late night show and the bizarre comic film Cabin Boy, but really bonded over a mutual love of Get a Life, his goofy, often surreal sitcom that broadcast for two seasons on Fox and later found a cult following.
So one afternoon, when Automator was visiting the office of Tommy Boy Records, a label A&R approached him while he was on the phone with Paul. The A&R asked Automator what the two were working on, and, thinking fast, blurted out, “Handsome Boy Modeling School,” inspired by a fictional modeling company from the aforementioned sitcom. Making it up as he went along, Automator added that it was going to be a hip-hop version of the Chemical Brothers where they’d work with a myriad of artists across many genres. Tommy Boy president Monica Lynch, after hearing the description of the project and loving it, signed them on the spot.
Of course, after getting a deal by essentially bullshitting their record label, Paul and Automator had to do the hard part: conceiving and recording the album. Image-wise, the pair developed a distinctive look, which was that of well-groomed and manicured gentlemen bred in society’s upper crust, apt to drink martinis and puff cigars. But in terms of music, the two producers utilize their usual eclectic production styles, each making use of their skills at digging deep in the crates for obscure records to sample. They create a soulful, dreamy sound and enlist a roster of well-respected rappers and singers to add gravity to the tracks. It’s an album that’s brimming with creativity and character.
Listen to the Album:
The album opens with “Rock and Roll Could Never Hip-Hop Like This,” an instrumental jam featuring the turntablist skills of Kid Koala. The late ’90s were a boom time for turntablists with hip-hop music, with super-skilled DJs gaining well-deserved attention for their skills at cutting and scratching records. Koala displays his quick hand skills over rocking guitars and vocals from Phillip Glass’ “River Run.”
The pair channels their love for Get a Life on a pair of mini-instrumental tracks, “Look At This Face” and “Modeling Sucks.” Both echo the production techniques that Automator utilizes on the Dr. Octagonecologyst album, pairing loops of recognizable classical music with hard-hitting drum breaks and overlaying vocal samples. In this case, they used snippets of dialogue from the Get a Life episode “The Prettiest Week of My Life,” the episode that features the original Handsome Boy Modeling School. The two chop and re-sequence the vocals, adding even more to the humor of the original material.
So…How’s Your Girl? includes a pair of genre-bending recordings, giving the album a couple instances of bizarre bliss. “Metaphysical (A Good Day)” features Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto speaking nonsensical phrases and sentences as a piano loop of Aretha Franklin’s “Sweet Bitter Love” plays, and strings and snippets of opera vocals filter in and out. Meanwhile, Mike D of the Beastie Boys mutters the song’s title over and over again.
“Sunshine” is a relatively straightforward duet featuring Sean Lennon and Josh Haden lending their vocals to the mellow track anchored by guitar playing by frequent Automator collaborator Brandon Arnovik. What makes the song surreal is a guest appearance by comedian Don Novello a.k.a. Father Guido Sarducci, who contributes vocals to portions of the song. Father Guido appears later on the album on “Father Speaks,” recording endorsements for the Handsome Boy Modeling School. As he reminds the listeners, “Handsome Boy Modeling school gave me the confidence to be a model. If it wasn’t for them, I would still have $60.”
The album’s other turntablist jam, “Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II),” is a sequel to the original “Bear Witness,” which appeared on the original Dr. Octagon project, also produced by Automator and featuring scratches by DJ Quest. For this installment, DJ Shadow works behind the boards and it featuring the scratching talents of DJ Quest. The track has the same dusty soul feel of many of DJ Shadow’s recordings, but still fits in well on the album.
So…How’s Your Girl? also showcases contributions from associates of both Automator and Prince Paul. “The Projects (PJays)” the album’s first single, is a bluesy track featuring verses from the late Dave Jolicoeur from De La Soul and Hieroglyphics’ Del The Funky Homosapien. The two detail all the eccentricities and danger associated with living in housing projects, with Dave rapping, “See, ain’t a day out here ever boring / Where gunshots keep you up instead of heavy snoring.” Del also appears on “Magnetizing,” a suitably sinister, off-kilter six-minute track, featuring one of the emcee’s unusual performances, filling his verses with references to Japanese cartoon and Manga. It sounds like a warm-up for the Deltron 3030 project, an album that Del would record with Automator and the aforementioned Kid Koala, with Del assuming the role of futuristic b-boy super soldier.
Watch the Official Videos:
Two-thirds of the group Brand Nubian show up for “Once Again (Here to Kick One For You),” an almost mournful track built around a slowed-down sample of Three Dog Night’s “Just Another Old Fashioned Love Song.” Grand Puba and Sadat X each kick two verses on the track, giving deliberate, laid-back performances that are still packed with clever rhymes. While Puba raps “As I flip a flow you desire / Datty blaze those trees and let’s start this forest fire,” Sadat X makes a call back to “Static,” a track he recorded with Kool Keith earlier that year, rapping, “I want the whole world and my old girl back / Change that—I want half the world, and fuck my old girl.”
One of the album’s best songs is “The Truth,” featuring vocals by Irish singer and Moloko co-founder Róisín Murphy coupled with a verse from New York City underground super emcee, J-Live. Here the duo sample the extended piano solo from Galt McDermott’s “Coffee Cold,” with Prince Paul also playing the horns and Automator on the violin. As Murphy croons from the perspective of a woman in the midst of a disintegrating relationship, J-Live delivers a smooth verse filled with legal references, rapping, “Stenographers are steady logging the jargon / That your counselors are barking, in hopes of a plea bargain / But when you read back verbatim, what they're saying to persuade them / They realize exactly how I’ve played them.”
Paul and Automator give some shine to some lesser-known emcees on So…How’s Your Girl? as well. South Bay Area emcee Encore appears on “Waterworld,” the only track produced solely by Automator on the album. Encore uses his verbal dexterity to weave complicated flows and liquid-related metaphors throughout the track, composed of eerie pianos and dripping water sounds. Encore demonstrates why he’s one of the great forgotten lyrical talents of the early ’00s, rapping, “You doubt me like the foes of Noah, embarking in this Ark, the soul controller / While fools caught up in this deluge to blow up / You’re inundating wit the outdated / See all of y’all fall when this cascade hits.” Encore would become of the first signees to Automator’s 75 Ark imprint, which he’d launch soon after the release of this album.
The incredibly unorthodox Sensational appears on “Torch Song Trilogy.” Sensational, once known as Torture, got his start as an extended crew member of the Jungle Brothers, making numerous appearances on their J. Beez Wit the Remedy (1993) album. Paul would later reconnect with Sensational as they both recorded albums for WordSound Records, a New York-based haven for unconventional artists. Here he lends his abstract raps to the vibraphone-heavy track in one lengthy verse, letting off stream of consciousness raps. He barely rhymes throughout the song, continuously sliding on and off the beat.
So…How’s Your Girl does end on its sole misstep, “Megaton B-Boy 2000,” featuring raps by El-P, then of Company Flow and overall underground hip-hop icon. The track was initially produced by the Handsome Boys, and then “destroyed” by Alec Empire, co-founder of Atari Teenage Riot and pioneer in the digital hardcore electronic music movement. The result is an unlistenable mess, which I guess was the point of putting Empire in charge of it. However, it’s a noisy, harsh jumble of buzzes and over-amped drums, with El-P’s lyrics indecipherable amongst the distorted mass of sounds. Look, I love experimental hip-hop more than many, but subjecting myself to this song, even 25 years later, was a tall ask. It’s an unpleasant listening experience that threatens to wreck the vibe of the album.
But this is still a minor and skippable fumble on an otherwise excellent example of two inventive producers coming together to make music that caters to both their peculiar and their conventional sensibilities. The duo break some new musical ground for hip-hop influenced productions, while contributing some straightforward banging tracks. And though we only get a small snippet of Biz Markie singing the Bee Gees’ “Night Fever,” we can guess that a full song probably would have worked well too.
LISTEN:
Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.