5-10-15-20 features artists talking about the songs and albums that made an impact on them throughout their lives, five years at a time. This time, we talk to 45-year-old hip-hop producer Prince Paul. The legendary beatmaker's new collaborative album with his son P.Forreal, Negroes on Ice, is out now via Nature Sounds. Listen along to some of Paul's picks with this Spotify playlist.

______James Brown: "Hot Pants"

__

I was born in Flushing, Queens, on April 2, 1967. Giacomo Casanova and Marvin Gaye were born on April 2, too. Me and Marvin have a lot in common, especially in regard to inner turmoil. I never did cocaine, though.

I grew up in Amityville, Long Island. My dad was a truck driver and my mom worked at at a department store. I had two older brothers and one older sister, which was great because I had people to look up to as role models. Teenagers are pretty cool when you're a kid. They get to drive, they know all the new songs, and your brothers have girlfriends coming in and out of a house. When your siblings are super-old, you don't have to worry about them beating up on your or taking your stuff, too. It's almost like being an only child.

When I was five, I bought my first 45s at May's Deparment Store-- "Groove Me" by King Floyd and James Brown's "Hot Pants". They cost 99 cents each. They're a little scratchy, but I still own those 45s to this day.

__Parliament/Funkadelic: Mothership Connection

__

I started collecting records when I was five, so once I realized that dudes actually put all this stuff together and spun for people, I was like, "Yo, that's crazy." I couldn't afford the equipment, but I had the records, and my brother and his friends pieced together some makeshift gear. When he was out, I'd just mess with his stuff and get familiar with it.

I was around 10 when I first started DJing. Parliament/Funkadelic's Mothership Connection came out the year before. What initially drew me to them was the artwork-- previously, I had the 45 of "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker" and I was like, "That's crazy, I know there's an album like that, I've gotta hear it." Once I got the album, I was hooked.

Trouble Funk: "Pump Me Up"

My first crew, the Ever Ready Crew, came together around 8th grade. My neighbors next door, Charles and Mitchell, were the MCs, and I was the DJ. We had a crew sweatshirt-- blue with iron-on letters and a picture of a Yamaha motorcycle on the front. I've still got mine for nostalgic reasons, but it's too tight for me now. If I was freaky, I'd wear it-- everybody's wearing tight clothes now.

There weren't really any gigs back then, except for house parties or block parties. They were having a Battle of the DJs where I lived, and this group that lived down the block from me called the Young Blood Crew was DJing. They had all the equipment and all the records-- by comparison, I was a bedroom DJ at that point. They let me get on, and I cut up Trouble Funk's "Pump Me Up". I was mad nervous because there was a ton of people in the place. In my head, I knew I was nice, but that couldn't translate to my hands. I was on the decks for, like, two minutes, if that. [laughs] I was like, "I'm nicer than this!" Within that same year, I stepped up at another show and was cutting the breaks from Ronnie Foster's "Midnight Plane". I heard the crowd scream, "Oooh!" I was like, "Yes! I told you I was nice." From that point until the mid-80s, you couldn't tell me I wasn't the best DJ that walked the earth.

While I was in high school, I joined Stetsasonic, and we made a demo, though I didn't even know what a demo was back then. I didn't know what a studio was, either-- I was a kid! Nowadays, it's different. As soon as kids learn how to rhyme, they're making records, saying, "This is a demo I made, it's gonna be my first single." [laughs] We put out our first single, "Just Say Stet", on Tommy Boy just as I was entering my first year of college, and we made [1986's] On Fire after that. It was a great experience. Up to that point, I was in my house piecing stuff together with two tape decks, a makeshift sampler, and drum machines. But then I was in the studio with people who really knew how to operate the equipment. I was collaborating with five or six other people towards one common goal: We gotta make this hit record. I had never done that before.

__The Bomb Squad

__

I met De La Soul through their DJ, Maseo. He said, "Hey, I've got a group I'm working with that you actually might like." I was the bigwig in town because I actually had a record out that played on the radio, which earned me some respect. He sent me a demo of "Plug Tunin'", and I was like, "This is what I'm talking about." I knew the guys in De La Soul previously because we were all in school together, but I never knew they rhymed. Around this time, I was more into producers and how people put stuff together. Stetsasonic went on tour with Public Enemy, and I got an earful of how the Bomb Squad did their stuff. They opened my eyes to making 3 Feet High and Rising.

Here's the basic formula we used to make that album: a deep record collection and a lot of laughing. Nothing more than that. People try to look into the psyche of it, like, "You guys invented this." We just followed our own inner voice and made the album. In a weird turn of events, we came out with a record that was big.

"Having a son was cool because I've always been a child at heart.

It gave me a reason not to grow up."

I didn't want to do a second record with De La Soul. I thought they were ready to do it by themselves. But we had chemistry, so two years later we made De La Soul Is Dead. The process was different, because the guys were a little more seasoned and knew what they wanted to do, so I stepped back and let them take the reins from me a little more. They were more grown up and less naive, but we still had fun.

I had my son in 1991. It didn't affect me much. You've always got guys who go, "I have my son! Life looks different." That's definitely not me. The only problem with having children is that it changes your relationship with the mother or father. If it's for good, life's great. If it's not, then life's difficult. Having a son was cool, though, because I've always been a child at heart. It gave me a reason not to grow up. When you are an entertainer, you're not going to grow up anyway-- that's why we get into so much trouble and buy stupid stuff and dress 20 years younger than we are. Now that my son's older, it's cool, because I live vicariously through him. There are certain things I know I can't accomplish, so that's part of why making Negroes on Ice with him was so much fun.

__De La Soul: Stakes Is High

__

When it came time for De La Soul to make [1993's] Buhloone Mindstate, they said to me, "You're a part of this thing." It was a very heartfelt conversation, and I said, "Wow, I didn't know you guys felt like that." At that time, I was the guiding part of what they did-- I made it easier for them to make records. They would disagree and ask me, "Paul, what do you think?" It's easier when one person is leading the way.

When we started making [1996's] Stakes Is High, though, it was clear that they were in a different place-- and I respected that. They were older, things were more tense. Every record we made together sold less and less and less, so there was a lot of stress on this record selling well. Meanwhile, I'm still stuck on being old-school-- let's have fun and laugh, things don't have to be perfect, just making it all vibed-out. I could see we were about to clash, so I made a conscious decision to say, "This is where we start to part ways. You guys go and make the record you want to make." I actually liked Stakes Is High a whole lot, though. I could sit back and listen to it from a fan's perspective and enjoy De La in a different way.

"Working with Chris Rock taught me that you

can go into a studio and not be all stressed out."

Until this point, I'd never looked at my music career like I was going to make a lot of money. It was just something I did on the side, as my creative outlet. I felt the need to show myself and others that I wasn't wack, so I called RZA, Too Poetic, and Frukwan, and put together Gravediggaz. Everybody had a hard-luck story, and that's what I wanted. I knew the combined mentality and energy would make something good. It reminds me of when the Detroit Pistons won the championship [in 2004]. Nobody ever thought they'd win, but they did and everybody was like, "Wow, so that's who Chauncey Billups is!"

For the most part, though, I thought my career was over. I wasn't working with De La, and everyone looked at the Gravediggaz as a fad, like, "Oh, they're trying to do some horror stuff." I made Psychoanalysis, which people consider my first solo album, although I don't think it really is, because it was just something to do. In my mind, that was going to be the last record I'd ever made. I told myself that if I did have another chance to put out a record after that, I would have to put myself out there as an individual-- which is hard, because I don't rhyme. I'm just a producer, so how do I do that? I had to spend time trying to figure that out.

Prince Paul: A Prince Among Thieves*

*

When I was working with Russell Simmons, I crossed paths with Chris Rock a bunch of times. He randomly got my number and left me a message-- I thought it was a joke. "Hey! It's Chris Rock. I'm working on an album and I'm thinking about having you produce a track or two." I call him back and I'm all like, "Yeah. Whatcha want?" He's like, "I'm serious." Even to this day, we joke about it. "You didn't think I was serious!" I started out just producing a couple of things here and there, and eventually I was producing all of [1997's Roll With the New]. That was an eye-opening experience. It taught me more about writing on a comedic level, that you can go into a studio and not be all stressed out. Chris and I are still cool-- he appears on Negroes On Ice. I don't get to talk to him as much as I used to, but he's always been supportive, and I learned a lot from him.

I remixed Dr. Octagon's "Blue Flowers" and eventually met ["Blue Flowers" producer] Dan the Automator through that. We're both cornballs, laughing at dumb stuff other people don't laugh at, so we bonded. He was joking around about the concept of Handsome Boy Modeling School; later, when he was remixing Psychoanalysis' "Beautiful Night", he was at the Tommy Boy offices and tells them, "Yeah, me and Paul are working on this project called Handsome Boy Modeling School." They go, "Really? Let's sign it!" He calls me and goes, "We gotta make something. I just sold the idea." It was a joke, and now we had to live up to the joke. There was really no pressure making the first Handsome Boy Modeling School record. We just sat there with two MPCs and a bunch of records and kept asking ourselves, "Does this sound handsome?" When we finished the beats, we made a list of everyone we admired and called them. It was very simple.

"I don't think there is a serious music industry like there used to be. But I'm not gonna sit here and complain about how we

need to go back to the old days-- it is what it is."

I wrote A Prince Among Thieves in '97 and recorded it in '98, and then it came out in '99 because Tommy Boy didn't know what to do with it at the time. With almost every record I've made, there's always been a sense of resistance. When it came out and got critical acclaim, it was like, "Ha, I told y'all!" And I'm not just saying that to myself in the mirror-- that record actually did pretty good! But it was still hard to convince the label to make promo stickers or t-shirts. I had to convince Levi's to make the t-shirts. The label gave me one video and that was it. It wasn't until it got all the acclaim that they were like, "Wow, we didn't see that coming! Make another one." But I was like, "No! Are you freaking crazy? You guys want to put a million dollars in some group called Sex Mob, and Prince Paul, who has made you guys tons of money in the past, can't get a freaking sticker or a t-shirt?" It was a kick in the face.

I don't even know what the music industry is anymore. I don't think there is a serious music industry like there used to be. Music has been for free for a hot minute, but now it's really for free. Not so much how it sounds, but what it looks like. "Aw, that song looks really good! He's gonna make a lot of money." That's the cold reality. I'm not gonna sit here and complain about how we need to go back to the old days, though. It is what it is.

__N.E.R.D.: In Search of...

__

I was stuck on N.E.R.D.'s In Search of..., heavily. There used to be a Sam Goody around my neighborhood, and I remember going there and asking the young kid who worked there, "What do you think about this album?" He was like, "It's garbage! Don't even waste your time!" And I was like, "Alright, I'll buy it." [laughs] I put it on while I was putting together a piece of furniture, and I was like, "Yo, this is really good." I put all my friends onto it, and for a minute, I wouldn't listen to anything else. Their production style sounded like such a throwback. It wasn't going after anything that was popular at the time-- they were making their own thing, and making it catchy. That impressed me.

I didn't have a definite direction when I was making Politics of the Business. All I knew was that I was mad at Tommy Boy for dissing me on how they handled the last record. I remember [Tommy Boy founder] Tom Silverman explaining to me why they didn't support the record: "Paul, albums don't sell. Singles sell. Make a whole bunch of singles!" So I should compromise the integrity of my music and make a whole bunch of singles? Are you serious? That's why I got Dave Chappelle to do the intro [on Politics], indirectly playing Tom Silverman. I was mocking what was on the radio then. Sometimes I forget that I can't expect people to get my sarcasm, because sarcasm requires that you see both sides of the coin. That's why when I put out a record, 10 years later everybody's saying, "That's brilliant!" That's been happening lately for Politics.

"Kids are great, unless you're saying,

'My son's in jail, he's on bath salts!'"

I met Dave Chappelle while working with Chris Rock. People like Dave and Chris are always saying to me, "Buhloone Mindstate is one of my favorite rap records-- it's really funny." Funny? That's the least funny record I've made! The last time I spoke to Dave, it was at a party for "Chappelle's Show" when it first premiered. I was putting together an idea for a show to sell to MTV or BET, and I asked him if he would be the producer of it, and he said, "Yeah, just call me." After that, his show took off, and getting in touch with him was impossible. I didn't want to be that dude going, "Hey man, remember the time we had that conversation in the club?" so I let it go.

I had my daughter in 2002. It's nice having a boy and a girl. I would suggest the same to anybody that's planning to have kids-- though you can't really control it. [laughs] Kids are great, unless you're saying, "My son's in jail, he's on bath salts! My daughter's skipping class and wearing hoochie-mama clothes!" I've never had that, though. I sit and talk to my kids-- they respect me and I respect them. It goes both ways, and we've got a really good relationship. The problem's always the people you decide to have the children with. You think, "I wish I could keep my kids, but get a do-over with who I had them with." One thing that's always stayed constant in my life is problems with women. I'm attracted to crazy women because I'm crazy myself. I'm in my head all the time, and that doesn't make for a healthy relationship in most situations.

My mom and my older brother passed away during this time, so a lot of things I was working on just stopped. Time froze. The first time I made any money, I bought my mom a house. I loved her and took care of her, she was my best friend. I made a kids' record with Dino 5 right after she passed, and that was hard because I was super-duper depressed. It came out pretty good, though. [laughs]

__Earl Sweatshirt: Earl

__

I really got stuck on Earl Sweatshirt's Earl for a minute. My God, to be so young and so smart lyrically. I'm not gonna lie-- when I hear something, I listen to the beat first and then lyrics second, if at all. Someone could have amazing lyrics, but if they don't ride with the beat, it's like trying to put a square peg in a circle. I don't care what you're saying, I can't go through with it. It's like singing off-key-- you can have beautiful words but I'm sitting here going, "Oh my god, turn it off!" With Earl Sweatshirt, first I listened to the music, which very simple, nice throwback stuff. But then I heard his voice and the lyrics, and I was like, "How old is he? He's saying what?" It's really smart, and I can appreciate that. I didn't think kids rhymed smart anymore. [laughs]

"I'm not mad at Drake like a lot of people are-- and when I say 'a lot of people' I'm talking about the underground heads who get really upset with me anytime I like anything that's semi-commercial."

I'd love to work with Earl, but I don't think I'd fit in with that whole Odd Future thing. I was way ahead of the game on these guys-- I put my son onto them, and he put his friends onto them, and some people were comparing Odd Future to Gravediggaz. Then I see Tyler, the Creator say, "I hate the Gravediggaz! They're wack! Stop comparing us to them!" I felt like a freaking idiot, because I had just praised these dudes! He's a kid, so I don't put it against him-- that's just part of their schtick.

I listen to everything-- that's the advantage of having a 20-year-old son. I like Wiz Khalifa and Kendrick Lamar and everybody else. Kanye can be very clever at times. I'm not mad at Drake like a lot of people are-- and when I say "a lot of people" I'm talking about the underground heads, the "keep it real" crowd. They get really upset with me anytime I like anything that's semi-commercial: "You like what!?!" I was DJing a few years ago and I played DMX and they were like "Agh!" They were hating on me! I'm like, "Are you crazy? This record's hot!" For them, it has nothing to do with how good the music is-- they're just basing their opinions on what it looks like and where it stands. They don't realize that they're equally as ignorant as what they're hating. Music's music. If I like a Katy Perry song, it shouldn't be like, "We can't take Prince Paul at face value anymore, because he's going to the other side!" [laughs] "We lost him, fellas!"