Music career
Nazel took the stage name of DJ Prince and started selling mixtapes at school. While working at a petshop at a Lennox California Mall, its owner, Sam Nassif, asked him to DJ a party at a community dance hall. He kept performing there for several weekends and the success persuaded Nassif to invest even more in the place, renaming it "The Cave",(And Later "The Basement") where Nazel would continue to host for over three years and even after his N.W.A days. Nassif also funded DJ Prince's first record, "Strange Life". [11]
He changed his stage name when he was 15 years old at the Skateland USA, the same skating venue credited for launching N.W.A a few years later, due to a fan's suggestion. He said about his name: [12]
I called myself DJ Prince at first; back in the day, I always used to dress like Prince. That was the thing in the early '80s — either you dressed like Prince or you dressed like Michael Jackson. I used to wear the tight parachute pants, and I had the trim moustache, the whole thing. One day I was DJing at a skating rink. I was with Egyptian Lover, that was my boy, still is. This girl comes up to us and asks us our names. And he's like, "I'm Egyptian Lover." And I'm like, "I'm DJ Prince." She looks at me and goes, "I always see you two together. You should call yourself Arabian Prince." And I guess that just stuck. [10]
Arabian Prince started working with Bobby Jimmy & the Critters in 1984. He also produced the hit single and album for J.J. Fad, "Supersonic".
In 1987, he was a founding member of N.W.A, helping with production on some tracks and appearing as a vocalist on "Panic Zone" from N.W.A. and the Posse (1987) and the last track off the group's debut studio album Straight Outta Compton (1989), "Something 2 Dance 2", [13] a relatively radio-friendly song which was also removed from later pressings of the album due to a dispute. [14] Arabian Prince left N.W.A in late 1988, shortly before the release of Straight Outta Compton, over royalty and contract disagreements. "I started off as a solo artist", he said, "so I was aware of what a royalty statement was. I knew that when these many records were sold, there is a quarterly statement. When you look at it, you can see how much money was paid and then share it. This was not the case. We were also never paid for touring." Eazy-E, Ice Cube and MC Ren remained as the main performers, DJ Yella was the turntablist and Dr. Dre was the main producer. [15]
After leaving N.W.A, Arabian Prince began a solo career. His first album, Brother Arab , was released in 1989 with the single "She's Got A Big Posse"; Where's My Bytches followed in 1993.
In the mid-2000s, he started releasing music again, with his Professor X project on the Dutch label Clone Records. "I could not release the record under Arabian Prince", he said, "because I already had a single out, so I called myself Professor X on that record." [16] In 2007, he performed as a DJ on the 2K Sports Holiday Bounce Tour with artists from the Stones Throw label. In 2008, Stones Throw released a compilation of his electro-rap material from the 1980s. [17] One of his songs was included on the 2007 video game, College Hoops 2K8 .
In 2015, a biopic about N.W.A. titled Straight Outta Compton was released; however, Arabian Prince was not portrayed in the film. [18] After the release film, Prince said to VladTV: "A lot of the scenes in real life, I was there—I'm just not there in the film, which I'm like, if you're gonna write me out of a movie, shoot some other scenes. Don't write scenes where I was there." [19] Some of the pivotal scenes would be choosing the name for the band, the tour and the infamous Detroit concert. He also remembers himself as the main opposer to Jerry Heller about the royalties and the money, a role that in the film was instead given to Ice Cube.
The following year, N.W.A. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but again, Arabian Prince was not included nor mentioned. [11]
In 2018, Arabian Prince appeared on the AmeriKKKant album of industrial-metal band Ministry. He made a second appearance on Ministry's 2021 album Moral Hygiene . [20] [21]
