At the beginning, Prince Paul, the 31-year-old Paul Huston, was just a kid DJ with New York old-schoolers Stetsasonic. During that period, he hooked up with three fellow Long Islanders calling themselves De La Soul and produced the landmark "3 Feet High and Rising." The unforeseen success caused a rift with Stetsasonic, essentially an underground outfit, and Paul quit. Five years later he split with De La Soul over commercial and artistic differences.

Def Jam Records pegged Paul with his own boutique label, Dew Doo Man Records, which never happened: The company refused to release every artist he signed. He fell into depression and came out of it in 1994 with the Gravediggaz's "6 Feet Deep," a masterpiece of paranoia made with the Wu-Tang's RZA, an underrated rapper named Too Poetic and Frukwan, an old friend from the Stetsasonic days. In 1996, Paul released his first solo album, "Psychoanalysis: What Is It?" a mostly instrumental record that gave hip-hop a brain and allowed its subconscious to open up on vinyl.

The story at the center of "Prince Among Thieves," the follow-up to "Psychoanalysis" and Paul's major label return, is about an aspiring rapper named Tariq who needs $1,000 to finish a demo tape in time for a business meeting with the Wu-Tang Clan. Along the way, the young MC meets characters portrayed by rap stars Kool Keith, Big Daddy Kane, Chubb Rock, Biz Markie, De La Soul, Everlast and others. In accordance with Paul's idea to create an invisible movie told with skits and rhymes, each cast member wrote and delivered his rhymes in character.

The finished product is an uncommonly sharp, yet affectionate, criticism of hip-hop culture. Instead of preaching from the outside or complaining from within, Paul accomplishes the trick of mocking hip-hop's self-importance and bloat while following the genre's own rules. The surface story, about Tariq, is an entertaining and violent tale that wouldn't sound out of place on a thug-life gangster record. But underneath, the cunning samples, complex beats and various mike styles offer a subtle alternative. By showcasing diverse rappers with diverse skills, Paul is portraying real artists -- a direct play on the supposed "real" life quality (read: hard ballin', gun-toting hustlers) of commercial rap records.

Hip-hop, of course, is a broad and diverse cultural movement with history, geography and ethnic diversity. Rap, on the other hand, is a narrow intersection on the hip-hop spectrum, driven by the music industry and commercial concerns. Under Paul's deft direction, "Prince Among Thieves" manages to be both a rap and a hip-hop record.

This interview took place at the Manhattan offices of Tommy Boy Records. At one point in the conversation, Prince Paul marveled at the fact that he had been working with the label almost half his life, starting when he joined Stetsasonic at age 16.

You're approaching a hip-hop taboo by writing about obviously fictional characters. RZA of Wu-Tang Clan took a lot of flak in the rap press for wearing a mask and using alter ego Bobby Digital because it wasn't considered real. Why is blatantly fictionalized rap a no-no?

I don't know. Everything is supposed to be all real and trendy, but rap is so made up. It's almost like pro wrestling.

By putting on a mask, RZA was acknowledging a make-believe identity. That's the taboo both of you are breaking.

I think it's different. People expect the unexpected from me. They expect zany stuff. RZA is credible in "real" rap. With me, it's like, "Oh, there goes Paul again."

I don't understand the negative reaction that a lot of ghetto kids have toward rappers playing fictional characters. I mean, I appreciate the preference for tough music and hard personas, but to label those characters "real" and all others "fake" strikes me bizarre. I assume that ghetto kids know that Raekwon and Mobb Deep aren't really mafia coke dealers.

I dunno. I go around and talk to a lot of kids and they really feel it. Maybe it's something they wanna live. I think the average kid on the street doesn't put too much thought into anything: He just reacts. If he really sat down and looked at the marketing, the money, the record company -- really pieced things together -- he'd be like, "This doesn't add up. You say you sell all this weed, and you shot all these people, but you're blatantly out there on the front of your album cover, chillin'!" Rap is like that anyway -- it's whatever's now, whatever's trendy. Me, I put thought into practically everything.

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