Consumer Guide Album

Blackalicious: NIA [Quannum Projects, 2000]
Like all underground hip-hop whether it admits it or not, this is not aimed at le DMX fan moyen intellectuel. Like all underground hip-hop whether it admits it or not, it's for musos--predominantly white and Asian beat aesthetes whose racial impulses risk awkwardness and worse no matter how objectively progressive their tastes and ideas. But that doesn't mean the scene isn't good for plenty of sharp rhymes and rhythms, or that this West Coast crew aren't better than that. Not because they refuse to "contribute to genocide" by faking gangsta "reality," although that's nice, but because they refuse to contribute to the pleasureless us-versus-them of the old-school ethos. As philosophy, their spirituality is icky. As music, it's profusely generous, overflowing with tribal chants and doo-wop choruses and easygoing basslines. They're "r&b" without a wet rhyme in 74 minutes. They actually seem capable of a hit. And if, as usual, that actuality is theoretical, soundtrack scouts should at least remember they're around. A-