Brown has produced top figures in many different fields - politics, medicine, law, business and others. But perhaps no other Brown alum dominates his field as completely as Jewish hip-hop artist M.C. Paul B.
Visual art concentrator Paul Barman '97 has been described by the Dallas Morning News as "easily the greatest white, Jewish, New Jersey-bred and Brown University-educated rapper in history" and the New York Times as the quintessential "rapper as schlemiel ... a Woody Allenesque neurotic who is nerdy, girl crazy and sexually hapless."
Barman traveled a short but circuitous route to hip-hop stardom. Born and raised in Ridgewood, N.J., he entered Brown focused more on a career in visual art than in music.
As a student, Barman was especially interested in drawing comics. During his first year and senior year he produced weekly comics such as "The Orko Alphabet" and "Real Life Suction Stories" for The Herald. Barman changed the name of his strip depending on its subject, preferring to experiment with different themes rather than remain loyal to a specific set of characters.
"It's really hard coming up with the material for a daily comic, especially with all the daily grind of college. Some of my comics weren't the best - but there are others I'm really proud of, and that my friends cut out and saved," Barman said.
Barman also ran weekly comics in the College Hill Independent, including "Garfielderine," a combination of Garfield and the "X-Men" character Wolverine. As a senior he worked as a comics editor for the Independent.
Barman's comics demonstrate an interest in language, with a frequent use of puns and word play that would later become a staple of his hip-hop repertoire. The budding rapper also attended art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. Barman recently donated a collection of his comics to the RISD library.
It was in an art show for Brown's visual art department during Barman's senior year that his musical breakthrough finally came.
"It was definitely based in part on the VA requirement that you do a show, and that it had to be a performance rather than an exhibition," Barman said. Barman created an eight-song cassette in preparation for his performance. He sold over 200 copies for $2 a piece, and on May 15, 1997, he performed his first live rap show when "Barmania" debuted. To complement his musical performance, Barman's grandmother prepared a speech, his brother made a slide show about their home in Ridgewood and his father performed a stand-up comedy routine.
But for Barman, the transition from cartoonist to hip-hop artist seemed natural. "I guess like a comedian, I'm looking for taboos in this society."
In 1998 Barman produced his first tape, "Post Graduate Work." Barman sent a copy of the tape to hip-hop producer Prince Paul, and the two began working on Barman's first EP, "It's Very Stimulating," which was released in 2000 and includes the songs "I'm Frickin' Awesome," "MTV Get off the Air, Part Two" and "Salvation Barmy." The title track of Barman's first LP, "Paullelujah," produced by Coup d'Etat records, is the graduation speech he would have made had he won the office of student council president, according to Barman's Web site.
In "Senioritis," a track from "It's Very Stimulating," Barman describes the frustrations of high school. "Abolish class rank, pour sugar in its gas tank. Weighted grades really yank my ass crank. And stop up my leak hole. English and autoshop should be equal. Anyway an A is a weak goal. ... Double teachers' salaries and hire smarter. Discard the farters who only inspire fire starters. What is the meaning of C.L.A.S.S.? Is it a Conspiracy Leveled At Sleepy Students trying to pass?" Barman's album was named second in Rolling Stone's list of the year's top 50 albums.
Barman's content includes self-proclaimed "juvenile" sex jokes, complex academic references, comments on his religion and names of pop culture icons - often all within a single song.
In "Burping and Farting" on the "Paullelujah" LP, Barman raps: "Burping's from slurping the carbon dioxide in sugar water. Sodalicious, yet less nutritious than a booger snotter. Gas burps from fast slurps and come back in blast. Chirps through the esophagus. It smells like a sarcophagus."
Never one to pull punches, Barman takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to the political correctness that pervades many college campuses. In "Anarchist Bookstore," Barman raps: "If someone uses a non-offensive vocabulary that person is considerate, not PC. If someone has a heavy-handed agenda that person is narrow-minded, not PC. Unless you mean Providence College, PC is as meaningless as the president's apology for slavery."
The same song also includes a Hebrew word-play, with the line "Someone can tzuck my Tzadik."
One of Barman's defining characteristics is his attempt to integrate mathematics and rhyming whenever possible. "I'm really interested in mathematical patterns," said Barman, who has used palindromes such as "Kosovo's OK!" and "Ha! I ram Mariah a lot, Tom Mottola!" in his songs.
In "Pan Man," Barman experimented with the Fibonnacci sequence, rhyming first one, then two, then three and then five words in each line. "It was an action flick / Pan-man kicked backwards attackers / Sent by the sexy matadoress from her Spanish fortress of course the film was torturous / Like Kaufman's masterpiece achieving wide release logos in the marquees said 'Pac Man' with the C's rotated 90 degrees." Barman continues the series up to eight before returning to one again.
Barman is currently hard at work on his next two LPs, the first of which is a collaboration with Casual T From Cincinnati and will be released early next year. In the upcoming LP Barman raps as part of a group known as "The Science Gang," which he founded.
"My next LP has a lot of scientific references, orchestral production and intense voices, whereas the one after that will be much more stripped down. I've let go of heavy pop culture references and attempted to be more direct in my new work. I'm looking outside of myself for information - what I call out-sular rather than insular," Barman said.
The new LP will include songs about oil, circumcision, a friend who abused drugs and various characters such as monsters and a preacher.
Barman has been on two major tours of the United State and Europe. Since graduating, he has returned to Brown for three performances, including Spring Weekend in 2000.
Looking back on his college days, Barman said one thing in particular stands out.
"Brown has the most beautiful girls on the face of the planet," he said.
