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Straight Outta Marina del Rey N.W.A. founding member and tech entrepreneur Arabian Prince is shaping the future PHOTOS BY LUIS CHAVEZ
By Jasmin St. Claire From rap music icon to technology guru, Kim Renard Nazel is a renaissance man. Under the moniker Arabian Prince, the Marina del Rey resident helped found the rap group N.W.A., which was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. He is responsible for some of the group’s hit songs such as “Panic Zone,” as well as the albums “N.W.A. and the Posse” and “Straight Outta Compton.” “People always ask me about my name,” Arabian Prince said. “In 1983, while I was deejaying at Skateland U.S.A. in Compton under the name DJ Prince with my good friend Egyptian Lover, a girl came over and said, ‘You should call yourself Arabian Prince because you’re always hanging out with this guy.’” While deejaying at Skateland, Arabian Prince met Dr. Dre and they eventually teamed up to produce a few projects together. It came naturally for Arabian Prince as he grew up hanging out in the KACE-FM radio control room, where his father was a DJ on talk radio. While his dad was working, Arabian Prince would mix music, and electronics and deejaying became his two passions. “While living in Compton as a kid, I had family members that were in gangs and doing crazy things,” Arabian Prince said. “They never wanted me to be in that lifestyle, so they gave me electronics to play with. When I was 15, I coded my own radio. When I was old enough to DJ, I saved some cash and built my own computer.” By 1985, rap was evolving into storytelling that centered around partying, clubs and girls, and reflected musical artists’ daily life struggles. But as gang activity and rivalries grew, throwing parties became potentially dangerous gatherings. As the environment in South Central Los Angeles changed, so did the musical style, which led to a new genre known as gangster rap.
Marina del Rey resident Arabian Prince is a founding member of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-inducted rap group N.W.A.
PAGE 10 THE ARGONAUT MARCH 11, 2021
Arabian Prince also met Eazy-E at Skateland, who at the time he referred to as a “pharmaceutical technician or a street executive.” In addition to Dr. Dre, they added Ice Cube and MC Ren into the mix and N.W.A was born. “I had a great relationship with Eazy-E,” Arabian Prince said. “Early on when N.W.A. started, it was primarily a lot of business talk because I had done the record thing for a while. I had a lot of knowledge of the do’s and don’ts when it came to making records.” In 1987, N.W.A released the single “Panic Zone” on which Arabian Prince was a co-writer and vocalist. A year later when Ruthless Records was formed by Eazy-E and N.W.A.’s manager Jerry Heller, Arabian Prince helped the group earn a gold record when they released “Supersonic,” which he had originally produced for J.J. Fad. According to a few sources, that was the hit that made Eazy-E a lot of money. Arabian Prince also included Dr. Dre and DJ Yella’s names on the record because he saw them as his brothers, although he had made the record by himself. When Heller came into the picture, he became partners with Eazy-E for Ruthless Records and started managing the band. Some say he was the element that poisoned N.W.A., which made the group feel less like a family and more like a business. “As soon as Jerry took control, he had every excuse under the sun for everything,” Arabian Prince said. “A great discrepancy in the 2015 N.W.A. biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’ is when they show Ice Cube raising questions about the royalties, then leaving the band over the dispute. Truth of the matter is, I was getting in Jerry’s face about the royalties. I started off as a solo artist, so I was aware of what a royalty statement was. I knew that when these many records were sold, there is a quarterly statement and when you look at it, you can