Handsome Boy Modeling School

The formation of Handsome Boy Modeling School united two idiosyncratic super-producers, Prince Paul—celebrated for his contributions to De la Soul and Stetsasonic—and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, who arrived fresh from his cult breakthrough on Kool Keith's Dr. Octagon album. Deriving the project's title from a specific episode of Chris Elliott's cult sitcom Get a Life, a source sampled repeatedly across their recordings, the pair assumed the sleek alter egos Chest Rockwell and Nathaniel Merriweather. Their first release, So...How's Your Girl?, took shape as a loosely conceptual album crowded with an eclectic roster of guests that included rappers Del tha Funkee Homosapien, J-Live, and El-P, artists affiliated with Cibo Matto, Brand Nubian, and the Beastie Boys, turntablists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Quest, and Kid Koala, electronica figures like Moloko's Roisin Murphy and Atari Teenage Riot's Alec Empire, and Saturday Night Live's Father Guido Sarducci. Tommy Boy issued So...How's Your Girl? in fall 1999, where it earned generally favorable notices, while the opening cut "Rock n' Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This)" was placed in a television advertising campaign. Nakamura then turned to a string of further ambitious undertakings that encompassed Deltron 3030, Gorillaz, and Lovage. The duo resurfaced in 2004 with White People, their debut album for Elektra.