E-Mail This Article to a Friend Royalty of rap The virtues of Handsome Boy Modeling School BY MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG

"If we sound a little out of breath, it’s because we just came back from the gym," says Chest Rockwell. "It’s part of handsomeness. We have form-fitting European suits, so you can’t have an extra pound floating around."

"We’re trying to set an example because we’re currently pushing our athletic programs," explains Nathaniel Merriweather, another member of Handsome Boy Modeling School, the fashionably hip-hopped group who come to the Paradise this Tuesday.

"Yes," Rockwell adds, "we recommend a vigorous jumping-jacks-sex-and-water program for the men and strip aerobics for the women."

In the ho-hum real world, the two guys on conference call from a tour bus parked outside a Nebraska nightclub are hip-hop producers Prince Paul and Dan "the Automator" Nakamura. But in the parallel universe of HBMS, Paul is Rockwell and Automator is Merriweather — ascot-wearing, smoking-jacket-clad, moustache-sporting proprietors of hip-hop’s first, finest, and funniest finishing school.

It’s been nearly six years since the pair opened shop with So . . . How’s Your Girl? (Tommy Boy), a campy, skit-filled concept album inspired by an episode of Chris Elliott’s Get a Life. With a slew of guests — DJ Shadow, Sean Lennon, Beastie Boy Mike D, and members of Brand Nubian and Moloko — HBMS espoused the virtues of proper hygiene and etiquette while trekking through trip-hop, turntablism, and old-school rap jams. Although it was planned as a one-off, Paul and Nakamura returned as HBMS in late 2004 with White People (Elektra).

"It’s been a little while between making records," Merriweather deadpans, "but a few years in handsome time is a lot different from a few years in regular-people time."

"Aw man, it’s true, time flies," Rockwell continues. "You look at your watch and you’re like, wow, 2005? It was just 2000. See, people usually gauge your success by your records, which is understandable, but that’s just part of what we’re doin’. We occasionally do lecture tours at stadiums with Deepak Chopra and Tony Robbins opening up for us, and man, that really takes up a chunk of time."

Back to reality. The pair were indeed busy in the interim: Prince Paul dropped a solo album, Politics of the Business (Razor & Tie), in 2003 and Automator participated to varying degrees in Deltron 3030, Lovage, and, most famously, Gorillaz. Last year, however, the duo revisited the School concept, hosting, they claim, several ritzy dinner parties for White People collaborators. Guests included Mike Patton, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Pharrell Williams, Jack Johnson, RZA, Chan "Cat Power" Marshall, Grand Wizard Theodore, Barrington Levy, Del tha Funky Homosapien, John Oates (of Hall & Oates), and members of Linkin Park, Black Sheep, Deftones, and the Mars Volta. Saturday Night Live vets Tim Meadows and Father Guido Sarducci were also aboard to anchor the skits that pepper HBMS’s stylish fusion of indie rap, neo-soul, downtempo grooves, blunted reggae, and semi-creepy electro-rock.

"It all came about real natural," Rockwell says. "It’s like this — let’s say me and you, right, we’re sittin’ around drinkin’ some bubbly, eatin’ some caviar, talking about, I dunno, the last woman you got pregnant. So that becomes the topic, and I’m like, ‘I don’t really know where you’re comin’ from but I can kinda understand.’ So we talk about it some more and then we put it to music. It’s not necessarily ‘Well, you do this and I’ll do this’; it’s a very natural back-and-forth."

"We like to think of the back-and-forth as women’s beach volleyball," adds Merriweather.

On stage, HBMS employ a three-piece band while Paul and Nakamura man turntables. Many of White People’s guests appear as animated characters on video screens to "perform" their parts. Beefy, British-accented HBMS adjunct instructor Manfred Winters hosts, and a handful of the album’s vocalists do turn up in the flesh: rapper Casual and crooner Josh Haden showed up in San Francisco, Patton and Black Sheep’s Dres brought the house down in Boulder.

"What’s cool about our show," Rockwell observes, "is that it changes from place to place because not only are some of the people up on the stage different but the people we’re interacting with in the crowd are different. For example, a Bostonian is not the same as an, uh, . . . Nate, what do you call these people where we’re at now?"

"Omahanians?"

"Yeah, Omahanians. Their style is definitely different, so the mood of the show is different. The challenge isn’t really to re-create the music. We can do that no problem. The real challenge is to try to get everyone to at least feel as handsome as we do by the end of the show. That’s what makes it all worthwhile."

Handsome Boy Modeling School headline this Tuesday, April 19, at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston; call (617) 228-6000.