Handsome Boy Modeling School’s White People: Serious Music in a Ridiculous Suit
Two men in formal clothes raise their glasses among blank white mannequins. Beside them sit two pale, marbled records. Even before the needle drops, White People gives away the joke: Handsome Boy Modeling School take the pose very seriously, and themselves considerably less so.
The men are Prince Paul and Dan the Automator, two producers who knew how to build entire worlds out of a beat, a voice and an unexpected interruption. Released in 2004, five years after So... How’s Your Girl?, their second album brings the fictional modeling school back for another term. The premise is absurd. The music, as Dan has said of the project, was never meant to be a throwaway joke.
A school built from a joke
The name came from a male modeling school in Chris Elliott’s sitcom Get a Life. Prince Paul later recalled that Dan mentioned the idea to Tommy Boy as if they were already working on an album. A joke became a record deal, then an actual record. Paul’s recollection of making the debut is wonderfully simple: two MPCs, a collection of records, laughter and calls to musicians they admired.
White People keeps that spirit, but opens the doors even wider. The skits, with Father Guido Sarducci and Tim Meadows, play out the school’s daft mythology. Between them, Paul and Dan arrange meetings that would look improbable on paper and make sense once the music begins.
An impossible guest list, made into an album
“If It Wasn’t for You” brings De La Soul into the room early, a natural reunion with the producer who helped shape some of their most inventive work. “The World’s Gone Mad” places Del the Funky Homosapien alongside reggae singer Barrington Levy and Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos. The point is more interesting than the surprise of seeing the names together: these voices arrive with different histories and make a new conversation possible.
Then “Breakdown” hands the microphone to Jack Johnson. “I’ve Been Thinking” gives Cat Power a very different kind of space. Later, “Class System” pairs Pharrell Williams with Julee Cruise, while “Greatest Mistake” brings John Oates and Jamie Cullum together. The sequence asks you to listen for relationships across styles, rather than file each song under a separate genre.
The boldest collisions are still to come. “Rock and Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This) Part 2” gathers Lord Finesse, Mike Shinoda, Chester Bennington and Rahzel. “A Day in the Life” joins RZA, the Mars Volta and A.G. The lineup is almost comic in print. What holds it together is the producers’ instinct for placing a strong character in a setting that changes how you hear them.
The comedy leaves room for the music
It is easy to mistake the school, the costumes and the famous guests for the whole idea. Listen through the album, though, and the skits begin to work like stage curtains. They reset the room between songs, making the next change of voice feel like another scene rather than a random playlist jump.
Prince Paul brought a long history of playful, narrative hip-hop to the collaboration. Dan the Automator brought his own appetite for cinematic arrangements and unlikely partnerships. Their shared humour gives White People its permission to wander. Their craft gives it a reason to stay. You can enjoy the ridiculous pose on the sleeve and still come back for a song that catches you off guard.
Back to the record
Our copy is Vinyl Me, Please’s numbered 2023 reissue, a two-LP pressing on Silver & White Galaxy vinyl, limited to 1,500 copies. The photograph above shows the actual album and its full-size records. It is a lovely physical match for an album that lets the visual joke open the door, then keeps changing the music behind it.
Start with “If It Wasn’t for You”. Stay for the detours, and let the school’s strange class of guests introduce itself one track at a time.
Research: Warner Music Japan’s album notes and track listing; Prince Paul’s 2012 interview with Pitchfork; Dan the Automator’s 2015 interview with Fayetteville Flyer; Vinyl Me, Please’s edition details.
Comments