Producer Prince Paul is responsible for some of hip-hop’s most elegantly eccentric moments, from his work with De La Soul and the Gravediggaz, through his work on guitarist Vernon Reid’s brilliant Mistaken Identity. Psychoanalysis (What is it) (WordSound WSCD010 46:58), like other oddball hip-hop releases (see Dr. Octagon), explores the bizarro outer limits of the B-Boy mindset. Though the connection between rap and the blues has always been clear to those who look, not even the most tripped out ethnomusicologist could have imagined as bent a stylistic collision as “The Bitch Blues,” a gleefully incorrect mutilation of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy.” “Beautiful Night”‘s wigged-out ramblings, and the wickedly funny “Booty Clap,” the latter a dead-on parody of the more brain-dead members of the Florida Bass nation, help make this disc a prime candidate for repeat play.
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