Already famous in hip-hop circles as the DJ in Stetsasonic, Prince Paul was much in demand as a producer after he worked on De La Soul’s momentous debut 3 Feet High and Rising. In addition to De La’s second and third albums, he produced Boogie Down Productions, Slick Rick, Queen Latifah, 3rd Bass and Big Daddy Kane; as “the Undertaker,” Prince Paul formed the pioneering “horrorcore” group Gravediggaz with RZA, Frukwan of Stetsasonic, and the late emcee Poetic.
 

 
So hot a property was Prince Paul that Russell Simmons gave him his own label, which Paul named Dew Doo Man (sometimes stylized Dewdooman) Records. The debut of a trio called Resident Alien, It Takes A Nation Of Suckers To Let Us In, was to have been the first album on Dew Doo Man—the November 1991 issue of SPIN even included it alongside Nirvana’s Nevermind in the list of staff favorites—but Rush giveth, and Rush taketh away: the label was scuppered and Nation Of Suckers was never released. Alex Ogg’s The Men Behind Def Jam quotes Paul on Dew Doo Man’s sad story:

[Prince Paul had] been approached by [Lyor] Cohen and [Russell] Simmons after De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising made him one of the hottest producers in rap. “I was like, quote, this up-and-coming producer that crossed a lot of quirky rap over to pop audiences,” Prince Paul recounts of their overtures, “[and they were] pricing dollar signs, ching ching… ‘Paul, do this label. We have RAL [Rush Associated Labels], whatever you want to call it.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do it.’ I just want to produce records. I’m just so happy, I was like a really naive kid, I want to produce records, don’t want to do nothing else. Then I was getting calls at the house: ‘Paul, why don’t you think about doing the label?’ ‘No, I don’t want to do the label.’ At the time I had Russell managing me, and then my lawyer starts calling me: ‘Russell’s calling me up and wants to know if you want to do the label.’ So I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll do the label, fine.’”

So he dutifully set about rounding up some neighbourhood friends, including Resident Alien and Mic Tee Lux, before producing a series of demos. According to Prince Paul, Simmons thought they were “dope” and green-lighted the project. But when it came to releasing the records he demurred, which hit Paul straight in the pocket because he’d financed most of the recording costs and had been turning down other production work in the meantime. “I just lost a whole lot of time and when everything was said and done, it was like, I got jerked. You know what I’m saying, it wasn’t Russell’s fault. I mean I could get mad at him all day, but I was just dumb and young and I just went, crawled [out] under the pressure.”

 

Prince Paul’s mid-90s business card
 
Of the Resident Alien album’s 20 tracks, only the single “Mr. Boops” and the twelve-inch promo “Ooh The Dew Doo Man” entered circulation before Simmons pulled the plug on Prince Paul’s label. During the recent period of internet-enforced glasnost,  videos for both songs (embedded below) have surfaced, as have sound files of every song on It Takes A Nation Of Suckers To Let Us In. This YouTube playlist is missing a few tracks from side two, so if you want to hear the full album, you’ll have to go to the blogs. Assuming Double Brain, Dragon and Mr. Bug still have their green cards, would a reunion be too much to hope for?
 

Resident Alien’s 1991 single, “Mr. Boops”

After the jump, the video for “Mr. Boops”...