A Prince Among Thieves is the second studio album by hip hop artist Prince Paul. A Prince Among Thieves was well received by music critics. Music essayist Robert Christgau has called it "the closest thing to a true rock opera you've ever heard".[10]
Background
The concept follows the story of an aspiring young emcee named Tariq, played by emcee Breezly Brewin, who needs to collect money to record a demo tape before a meeting with Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA. The story follows a desperate Tariq, who skips work at his low-paying job and turns to his friend True, played by emcee Big Sha, who introduces him to drug dealing. The two make their way through the drug world, a police ambush, jail, and, finally, a deadly showdown.
While recording, Prince Paul tried to get Vanilla Ice to appear on the album delivering a verse as one of the convicts in the jail scene, but was turned down by Ice's manager.[11]
A single version and video in the style of a film trailer was also produced. Although conceived as a story that would be filmed, a movie never came about. In a 2013 interview, Prince Paul said:
"That was the intention. When I first made it, I was inspired by Master P's I'm Bout It. I was like, 'This movie is so poorly shot, and it's popular. I could do that with more star power.' I tried to pitch it to Tommy Boy, and they apparently didn't see the vision. I was like, 'We could make so much money', but they were like 'Yeah, yeah Paul, we're going to put this million dollars in' whatever group that they had. Then at some point Chris Rock bought the rights to it, but he didn't do anything with it. So it sits and it sits. If I had the opportunity, if somebody said, 'Hey, I have a small budget', or wanted to get a Kickstarter going, I'd love to put that together."[12]
