If Prince Paul is hip-hop's mad genius, then Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, his partner in the acclaimed Handsome Boy Modeling School project, is its eclectic visionary.
By incorporating a vast range of musical genres into his production for the legendary 1996 "Dr. Octagon" album, a collaboration with eccentric rapper Kool Keith, the Automator exponentially expanded hip-hop's sonic scope.
"I tried to take music from every type of genre and freak it into a hip-hop backbone," says the San Francisco-based Nakamura, 32. "It was the idea that we could delve into all the different types of music, like hip-hop used to do."
One of the album's big fans was Prince Paul.
"The music was so good," he says. "I think his programming, production and arrangements are just so incredible. . . . His stuff had quite a few elements to it, and when I listened to it I kind of got the feeling of how the production was in the late '80s and early '90s, when people really concentrated heavily on arranging music and trying to make it unique."