MC Paul Barman

MC Paul Barman's musical credentials stray far from the beaten path. After all, few could've predicted that a white, Jewish graduate of Brown University would issue one of 2002's best hip-hop albums. But Paullelujah, a polychromatic tour through Barman's cracked cranium, is just that. Too smart for his own good and too horny for anyone else's, Barman raps like he's holding a New York Times in one hand and a Penthouse Forum in the other. His verbose geek rhymes range from cynical social criticism to pop-culture fantasies. A sure crowd-pleaser at Sunday night's show: "Cock Mobster," on which he runs through a shopping list of supermodels, celebrities and underground heroines he's hoping to get in the sack: I wanna fire blanks in Tyra Banks ... I would keep a tidy room for Heidi Klum/I'm immersed in Kirstie Alley's thirsty valley ... I wanna slip my slim sword in Kim Gordon.