Handsome Boy Modeling School: So... How's Your Girl?

They're too sexy (for played-out hip-hop)

These boys' beauty is more than skin-deep

The pictures that accompany So...How's Your Girl?, the debut album from the Handsome Boy Modeling School (HBMS)—a new project from hip-hop pioneers Prince Paul and the Automator—look like the product of two teenage boys with a camera on Halloween. They pose as they drink martinis, hang out of car windows, try to look slick in clothes that don't fit, and straighten their fake facial hair in the mirror. The music itself, a collection of work from some of the finest names in hip-hop and electronica, is just as playful.

The humor and irony are refreshing, especially considering the major offenses that are committed against hip-hop in the name of inflated self-importance. Please, let's take a moment to remember Nas, who fell the fuck off the reality wagon a long time ago. It's no wonder that the freshest voices in rap are laced with irony and guided by a crew of cosmopolitan-minded producers. When the most visible representatives of your art form are, among other things, hanging themselves from crucifixes, screaming atop the crumbling aftermath of Armageddon, and renaming themselves after creatively misspelled medieval prophets, how can you not laugh? The album has an almost absurd feel to it, no doubt—but HBMS manages to strike a remarkable balance between embracing silliness and treating hip-hop and turntablism as an art form worthy of reverence. It's one of the only intelligent party albums to come out of hip-hop in recent years, and this achievement is due largely to the willingness of Prince Paul and The Automator to let the subtle genius of their beats, samples, and scratches speak for themselves.

The album, while proclaimed by some as one of the most forward-sounding hip-hop records ever, actually owes much of its brilliance to its old school essentialism. Prince Paul and the Automator are beat purists, even as their mixes break all sorts of new ground. Just like the Automator's work on Kool Keith's Dr. Octagonecolygist, two tracks feature an old school hip-hop beat laid down over classical samples. "Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II)," DJ Shadow's contribution, is an overwhelming fusion of classic beat-box rhythms and electronica-influenced turntable work.

The vocalists on the album are also, by and large, hip-hop veterans. Beastie Boy Mike D, Dave from De La Soul, Sadat X, and Grand Puba make appearances. Del tha Funkee Homosapien even resurfaces, conjuring up the legacy of jaw-droppingly creative hip-hop that the early years of the decade left us.

Quannum Spectrum, a similar compilation released this summer by the West Coast collective Quannum, features many of HBMS's artists, most obviously DJ Shadow. While almost entirely left-coast-centric, Quannum still tries to achieve HBMS's eclectic feel. So...How's Your Girl? wins the battle, however—it's more geographically diverse and more, well, strange, than Spectrum. As goofy as the idea of a Handsome Boy Modeling School (taken from the early '90s Chris Elliott sitcom Get A Life) is as a unifying theme, it actually ends up creating a cohesive record. Though resoundingly solid in its own right, Spectrum appears, by comparison, just a clunkier, messier execution of a similar concept. It seems unbelievable, but by reinterpreting the old school, Prince Paul and the Automator have created a visionary, almost futuristic album. (Tommy Boy)

—Ann Ritter

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