Sunday, January 25, 2009

Resident Alien Discography



A little while ago we told you about Wordbooty, a T.R.O.Y. Forum denizen on an unstoppable mission to compile the entirety of Prince Paul's discography in mp3 format. With the help of the Duchess of Downloads, Ho1ogramz, he was successful in compiling two volumes of remixes credited to Prince Paul. Not too shabby. With an assist from Holo1Ogramz once again, he has amassed for you the discography of Prince Paul's largely obscure Resident Alien project. Unfamiliar with Resident Alien? Check it:
In the early 1990s, at the ripe old age of 20, Prince Paulwas the man in demand after having produced hits for3rd Bass, Big Daddy Kane, and of course, De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising. Although rumor has it that Paul was quite happy to stick to producing, Lyor Cohenconvinced him to take on his own imprint at Def Jam/RAL - and hence the Dew Doo Man was born. Things were rocky from the start, with Russell Simmons' less than enthusiastic reception to this new label's name, but Paul took his advance and his A&R freedom and began to work on Dew Doo Man's first release.

The first release that Paul came up with was a concept album - It Takes a Nation of Suckas To Let Us In - based around the characters of three immigrants from the Caribbean who had recently relocated to Long Island. This idea didn't exactly scream "millions of sales," and Def Jam didn't react well to the product they were being delivered. Their vision of the label was one that would release radio friendly, pop influenced tracks, which was clearly not what Paul had in mind. The label didn't care for any of the other acts that Paul had waiting in the wings, either.

In the end, the only release to ever come out on the Dew Doo Man imprint was the Resident Alien 12" Mr. Boops. Paul had a meeting with Cohen to try and save the label, but Cohen opted to shut down operations, leaving the full length album languishing unreleased. (Source)
Typical industry polititrix, yo. No wonder Paul went on to conceptualize Gravediggaz. As for the album - fortunately we live in a wondrous future-topia where even shelved and lost album can see the light of day. It's been floating around the net for some time now. In my humble opinion It Takes A Nation Of Suckas To Let Us In is a fun, worthwhile listen, if not necessarily on par with the many, many great full-length releases helmed by Prince Paul. The concept is clever, there are some wonderfully absurd/beautiful musical moments, and there's a cameo by Dres, but Prince Paul is so much better off working with top notch lyricists. Still, it's a nice little curiosity from one of hip-hop's greatest minds. Peep the album, plus some related vinyl material.

Resident Alien - It Takes A Nation Of Suckers To Let Us In LP (1991) 

Resident Alien "Pum Pum Master" from DJ Red Alert's Dancehall Show (1994) [Download]

Horror City ft. Resident Alien 12" Marz Records (1994) 
A1 - Aah's & Oohh's 
A2 - Wine Fi Kill 
B1 - Moogler 
B2 - Freestyle Fiend 

-- Thun

8 comments:

  1. Dopeness and classicist (Thanks, Kev:), as always.

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  2. there's a pretty rare promo only 12" of 'Dew Doo Man' too. Not the version with 'Mr Boops' and 'Shakey ground' on.

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  3. Need "Dew Doo Man" Instrumental

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  4. Awesome shit! Can you re-up "Pum Pum Master"?

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  5. @anonymous- Thanks for the feedback. Check the Megaupload link in the original Sharebee link.
    I just tried it and it still worked.

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  6. Got it! I use Skipscreen to download files, and for some reason it was skipping me straight to the Zshare link, which is expired. The Megaupload link worked for me.

    Thanks for all the awesome stuff you post in this blog -- I came here via google the other night looking for the Resident Alien LP, and now I plan to stick around.

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  7. @Anonymous- No problem.That's what's up, stick around. We got plenty of great stuff lined up and we don't plan on relenting. Search through our archives and you'll find plenty more gems. Thanks for following.
    Peace, Verge

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