Arabian Prince, Innovative Life
Featured Album
A forgotten West Coast classic — the strange bridge between N.W.A. and Kraftwerk
Age doesn't seem to wither electro — the pulse of the drum machine is pure, pristine electronic energy, whichever way you slice it — and the collected work of the Arabian Prince, much of which has been effectively unavailable for years, retains the same diamond hardness now as when it first emerged in the mid-'80s. A West Coast electro pioneer and original member of NWA, Arabian Prince (born KR Nazel) came up in the same electro-funk scene that produced Egyptian Lover, where the emphasis was on crews and crowd hyping. Early singles like "Strange Life" and "It Ain't Tough" are fleshed out with as many exotic pleasures as he could fit on those cheap 7" or 12" slices of vinyl — freaky chat-up lines, heavy breathing, Far-Eastern keyboard figures and white lies about his nomadic desert life. Destined for local clubs rather than the national charts, Arabian Prince's work shows new wave and funk roots quickly forgotten in East Coast electro — "Strange Life" and "Let's Hit the Beach" are weirdly voyeuristic narratives that owe a great deal to Prince, with countless uncanny lyrical asides ("Don't go to the beach if you don't want to get wet"). The production is timeless — "Innovative Life" itself retro-fixes Kraftwerk's "Tour De France" into an ecstatic plateau of heavy breathing, and "Panic Zone" (en early NWA track, the only one included here) features brutal vocoders and weirdly pitched-down vocals. The young Arabian Prince's exotic persona — part older lothario, part alien lover, channeled through his urgent, blank vocals — makes him effectively ageless even today, an electro Man Who Fell to Earth.
