If MF Doom is hip-hop’s vaudeville villain then horror/B-movie makeup artist and MC Mr. Dead is rap music’s Vincent Price-or maybe its Peter Sellers.

Best known for his absurd cameos on Prince Paul’s many side projects, Dead is a man of many different faces. There’s Creeqo Valencio, a deranged choreographer in pink leg warmers who hijacks Prince Paul’s MTV Diary and Jean Grae’s “The Jam” video; Johnny Massengill, the “vaginal crooner” who just wants to keep your pussy clean; and Pimp Daddy Shrimp, an old hustler with a sweet spot for seafood. And don’t forget about Peter O’Tool, frontman for over-the-hill soul survivors The Dix, or Manfred Winters, the well-heeled Handsome Boy Modeling School “instructor.”

Dead was formerly one half of horrorcore duo Metabolics, which released its debut album The M-Virus on WordSound Recordings in 1998. Following the departure of partner Big Pat, he kept the Metabolics name and released what was essentially his first solo album (though Pat appeared on a handful of tracks), 2001’s Vol. 2: Dawn of the Dead. MV3: Dynamic Tension (Raptivism), Dead’s first proper solo release, is a chaotic tour of the Brooklyn native’s many personas. There’s the apocalyptic imagery of “Burial Ground,” the straight-up battle rap of “Hostyle Takeover,” and the positive messages on “Love One”s Self.” Johnny Massengill and Pimp Daddy Shrimp appear, contributing the hilarious “Sweet Lady” and “Return of the Pimp Daddy Shrimp,” respectively.

“Besides the strange hairdos, the things all those characters have in common is they’re off-the-top,” Dead explains, arriving for an interview at Brooklyn’s Broadway Junction subway station with his 11-year-old son “Little Dead” in tow. “Everything I do is very not planned and very sporadic.”

Dead, who landed his first movie job designing creatures for the Troma Pictures flick Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD back in 1991, is also finalizing plans to direct his own horror film, Four Sides, with frequent collaborator Ryan Monihan (who directed the “Dynamic Tension” video).

“[The movie is] about this single woman trying to overcome tribulations and a tenant in the basement of her new apartment building, played by me, who has four sides and all four are sick,” Dead says. “Rufus and Becky–me and my wife, Nakir-are the comic relief. Rufus is an older, weed-smoking type of guy with greasy, slicked-back hair and Becky is a Mary J. Blige fan who always has a fur coat and shades on even when she’s cooking.”

Dead’s next two musical releases also appear headed further towards the deep end: Son of Blowfly, the story of a fatherless rapper who finds out his dad is none other than the X-rated funk legend, will follow Tender Titties Vol. 2, a full EP from Johnny Massengill.

“I’ve been blessed with the ability to multitask,” Dead says. “So I’m open to all venues of entertainment.”

A fascinating voice has ascended from the bustling musical circuitry of Japan: Caroline. With dreamy vocals and captivating programming-somewhere between the melancholic charm of The Cranes’ Ali Shaw and the innocently sensual minimalism of the Ghostly International roster-24-year-old Caroline Lufkin is staking a unique place for herself in a pop-ambient sphere already congested with Björk and Tujiko Noriko imposters.

As Lufkin explains, it’s been quite a journey to the release of her debut long-player Murmurs, on Brooklyn’s Temporary Residence (the home of epic and densely powerful instrumental bands Mono and Explosions in the Sky). After moving to Boston from Japan at age 18, Caroline enrolled in the esteemed Berklee College of Music to study songwriting as a vocal principle. Though analyzing a variety of music under the guidance of professors certainly aided this ambitious pop gem, it didn’t define her style. “I wouldn’t say that the songwriting department [at Berklee] helped me, but the harmony department did,” giggles Caroline. “It was just good listening to other people and being inspired by [them].”

Upon graduating, it wasn’t all glory for the motivated vocalist. Seeing potential in Japan for her music, Caroline migrated back to Tokyo, hoping to produce an album that captured her essence. Unfortunately, the Japanese market wasn’t quite ready for her. “Basically, my old management took me around to a lot of record labels and they all said ”Yes,” but in the middle of recording my album, it wasn’t going the way I wanted. So I just kind of quit,” says Lufkin. “Everyone was really nice and supportive of the record, but they already had an image of me in mind and I didn’t want that.”

Instead of engulfing herself in J-pop, Caroline moved to Los Angeles and recorded the synth-saturated single “Where’s My Love,” instantly forming a relationship with Temporary Residence. “I just emailed them and asked if I could send my demo. I guess I was lucky because they liked my songs; a few days later they were like, ‘We’re gonna sign you,” she recalls.

Excited by the whirlwind of Murmurs and planning an extensive tour in the fall, this diligent songstress refuses to compromise her musical vision. “I want to stay away from the jingles, even if it’s a quick way to make money,” she says. “I just want to concentrate on my music.”

When Prozack Turner (of Bay Area hip-hop act Foreign Legion) left the States last year for a six-week retreat in Ireland, he wasn’t exactly on a quest for rest and relaxation. He headed overseas with his rhyme book in hand, on a mission to record his new solo effort, Bangathon. “When not in the pubs, I was in the studio or on double-decker buses writing the album,” recalls Prozack in his Bay Area twang. “So it was definitely a great place to get away and put things into perspective.”

Prozack rightfully had a lot to contemplate. Following two independently released albums with Foreign Legion, this animated MC got signed by DreamWorks to record his solo debut. They even gave him a budget big enough to get first-class beatsmiths like The Alchemist, Pete Rock, and the late J Dilla in the studio. But not long after the completion of Death, Taxes and Prozack, DreamWorks got bought out, leaving the album stuck in the vaults.

Prozack never received the other 50 percent of the money he was owed, and wound up losing most of what he bought with his advance check-including his prized Cadillac Seville. “I never really gave a damn about money, just as long as my cell phone’s on,” says Prozack. “I did enjoy the splendors and I didn’t work for a couple years and that was cool, but I could care less about the money. I would have done the record for free. Just the opportunity to get my thoughts out there and share it with the world is what being an artist is all about.”

If there’s one thing the DreamWorks situation taught this MC, it’s that when it comes to business, you can’t rely on anyone but yourself. Once Prozack returned from Ireland, he was so eager to get his new album out that he launched his own record label, Hungerstrike, to do so. “After going through being on a major label for a while and previously being on independent labels, it’s like I have a college education in the music industry,” Prozack explains. “It’s like, ”Why don’t I just do this all myself?” It’s a lot of work, but it’s very satisfying at the end of the day when you know that everything is getting done.”

Prozack may no longer have the budget to record with hip-hop greats, but on Bangathon, he proves that the people he works with aren’t nearly as important as the story he has to tell. Fellow independent artists will relish the story of his struggle within the record industry and his ultimate perseverance on the track “Hungry.” Meanwhile, everyday guys will relate to Prozack’s frustration with club-going women and their shifty behavior on “Club Girls.” He may not have one target audience, but Prozack rarely fails to entertain with his vivid and brutally honest raps. “There’s no bullshit in there,” he says of his new album, but he could just as easily be describing himself.

The raunchy, distorted crunch of an electric guitar’s power chords; the chest-convulsing thump of a speaker-wall of beats; a soccer mob chanting the booty-worship refrain “Vai, Popozuda!” (which translates roughly to “Shake that hot ass, girl!”). For the past four years, it’s been hard to escape “Popozuda Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Brazilian producer Edu K’s anthemic mating of metallic guitars with Rio’s bass-heavy baile funk. The song has appeared on Brazilian rock radio, favela funk compilations from Diplo and Essay Recordings, even European car commercials. Now, with a full-length album of rock- and reggaeton-inflected baile boomers, Frenétiko (Man Recordings), Edu K feels ready to take the sound of Brazil’s ghettos to the world.

Edu K’s musical career began far from the late-night funk dances of Rio’s shantytowns, in the relatively sleepy town of Porto Alegre in Brazil’s southeast. It was there, in the ’80s, that Edu K and a few friends aligned with European New Wave and formed Defalla, the post-punk band Edu K fronted until 2000.

“Defalla was for the goth, English rock stuff originally,” he says. “I was just a kid hangin’ around in full makeup, dark clothes, and big, messed-up hair. Aside from us few, the city’s youth was totally into nativismo [traditional Southern Brazilian folklore, music, and clothes], so it was totally ‘style wars’ here.”

Defalla became one of Brazil’s biggest homegrown punk acts, but all the while the ubiquitous beat of baile funk-the Miami bass-influenced party sound prevalent throughout the favela-was rumbling in the background. In the late ’90s, as funk became more acceptable to the Brazilian mainstream, Edu K and Defalla fell for its slamming beats and simple, repetitive refrains. They came to believe baile was punk’s true heir, a philosophy of funk that few share.

“There’s a lot of prejudice when it comes to baile funk,” says Edu K. “People say it’s the music from the poor, and rock kids don’t exactly dig the funk scene. [Defalla] was one of a [few] bands to make the bridge between punk and funk. ‘Who says a rock band can play funk?’ was the general attitude. Well, George Clinton did!”

On Frenétiko, Edu K takes his punk-baile sound a step further, incorporating elements of his early electronic interests (Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, for instance) and current reggaeton sounds on an album to be released only outside Brazil. To Edu K, that’s the ultimate goal: to make music based in Brazil, but with worldwide influences and appeal.

“Reggaeton, dancehall beats-they all groove a lot like traditional Brazilian folklore riddims,” says Edu K of a connection that might lure Brazil’s music out of its self-imposed samba/bossa pigeonhole. “That’s the hook: the African-Jamaican-Brazilian connection! Brazil’s a huge country, and it’s been looking a little bit too much at its own bellybutton in past years, but that’s all starting to change. We’re on our way to being a part of the global village.”

It’s been nearly three years since Boder Crossing‘s debut, Ominous, was released in the UK. After their first label, RG, went out of business back in 2004 and the duo-which now consists of DJ/producer Seorais (pronounced “shorus”) Graham and turntablist Alex Angol-renegotiated their rights, French imprint Recall picked up the slack and gave Ominous its proper credit. The hip-hop collective has grown up a bit since then-in actuality, grown down (after last year’s departure of engineer/producer Paul Mulvey)-but Ominous is just as close to their hearts as it ever was.

“A lot of [the album], to me, still sounds totally fresh,” explains Graham. “Our production and writing skills have developed over time, so we might feel that some of [Ominous is] naïve, but irrespective of that, the emotions and motive behind it means it still sounds fresh…I wouldn’t say there’s been a switch [in sound], but there’s been a definite growth.

“It took us a long time to gain our confidence back,” Graham says of Mulvey’s absence. But they haven’t missed a beat. Graham and Angol both took up the writing and production reigns for their upcoming disc (slated for a late 2006 release), which features vocals from Ricky Rankin, up-and-comer Vicky Virtue, and Five Deez’ Fat Jon-a border crosser in his own right, with whom the duo shares a strong artistic connection. “There’s been a kind of meeting of minds with Jon,” says Graham. “There’s definitely a sense of kindred spirits with people like Five Deez and even, I’d say, other artists that we admire like Little Brother.”

There’s an old soul element to Ominous that’s undeniable, but hardly surprising-both current Border Crossing members came up through the ranks of the UK’s hip-hop and soul club circuit. Angol was a DJ in Renegade Soundwave and Radical Crew. (“They were like our idols as kids,” says Graham, also a veteran DJ.) They’re also suckers for nostalgia, as evidenced by refrains like, “Original heads in the area/Let’s take it back to ’93/…the era of the true MC” on “Original Heads,” where Rockwell’s subdued rap anchors a bass-heavy groove complimented by a rhythmic, razor-sharp hi-hat.

One senses the duo could take things back even further, to the days when London’s punk and reggae scenes crossed to create one of Britain’s most politically interesting times for music. “That spirit never died,” exclaims Angol. “If you look at West London now, you see we’re doing an album and the guy above us is working on an Aswad album at the same time.”