I was so caught up in the Haymaker & Sally premiere that I neglected on Friday to wish a happy 43rd birthday to Mik Lezan, real name Kim Nazel, better known to hip-hop nostalgists as Arabian Prince. Little known fact (outside the world of dedicated rap fandom) is that Arabian Prince was a founding member of N.W.A. and is pictured on the cover of Straight Outta Compton. He appeared only on the song “Something 2 Dance 2” (as well as on “Panic Zone” on N.W.A. and the Posse), and left the group upon realizing that he was the odd man out.

A solo career has been hit or miss; I recall as a 12-year-old buying the tape “Brother Arab” and bumping his semi-hit, “She’s Got a Big Posse” on the double tape deck stereo I got for Christmas. Apparently, though, I was one of the few, and Arabian moved on to join the redneck-sounding Bobby Jimmy and the Critters, the best surviving photo of whom I could find online features a little editorializing on the bands’ skills:

Arabian Prince, looking like the odd man out once again.

These days, Lezan/Nazel bangs out electro beats as Professor X and does some video game work for Fox/Vivendi. He was also recently credited as a writer of Fergie’s “Fergalicious“–mainly, it seems, for his production work on the sampled J.J. Fad hit “Supersonic“.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Prince. Sorry the N.W.A. gig didn’t work out, but way to make lemons into lemonade.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.