Just for the record, this isn't a case of me being lazy and not doing a track-by-track rundown. A Prince Among Thieves is over thirty tracks long and half of them are skits. Not only would that be long as hell, it would also be rather redundant hearing me yap about the unimportance of musical skits. To make matters worse, this is a concept album. No, not one of those loosely based ones that people try to make nowadays, this is actually a movie that happens to be told in song form. Literally every song plays into the story, as we learn about a young rapper making his way onto the top of the rap game. I hope you can see where this review would get boring, as i would basically be narrating the story to you.
That being said, concept albums are an anomaly in hip hop, or at least ones that actually have a cinematic feel to it. No one has ever perfected it, which is even more interesting. I guess the closest thing to a perfect concept album would be Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., but even that has a loose story. Don't fear, all you have to do is leave it to Prince Paul to assemble the one of the only true concept projects that I enjoy. Not only does he never lose sight of the story line, the skits are far from filler. Even better, the actual songs never fail to be compelling, as Paul brings along a star studded cast of rappers to help portray his characters. As for the story, the entire adventure is told as fiction. While there's obviously touches of realism, all this is coming straight from the mind of Prince Paul, which may be the most ambitious aspect of the album. The young rapper named Tariq is played by the Juggaknots' Breeze. He's got a deal set up with the Wu-Tang, but still need $1,000. That's is where he runs into problems. He turns to his former rap mentor, turned drug dealer True, played by Sha. True puts on a brilliant poker face, as even Tariq's mom wishes he was more like him, but True secretly resents the good fortune that Tariq has had. The story then follows both of them as they run through the underground trying to pick up the extra cash. While not directly stated, you slowly start to see the tragedy that is unfolding. I'll cut myself off now, as I actually want you to go out and buy this thing to find out what happens.
For the guests, we have Big Daddy Kane portrayed as a pimp, a role that couldn't be played better than the Kane himself. It shouldn't surprise you that Kool Keith makes an appearance as well. Concept albums have also been a thing of his and he pops up here as an insane weapon dealer. Chubb Rock is the leader of the underground, Chris Rock and De La Soul both make appearances as crack addicts, Xzibit and Sadat X are both prison inmates, while Everlast works as a crooked cop. The brilliance of Prince Paul is what you'll end up remembering, though. He makes the virtually unknown Breeze and Sha feel like the albums biggest stars. Paul mixes every sound he's learned into this album and ends up with what may be the crown jewel of a legendary career.
Rating: 4/5