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Forget Luscious Jackson: Pink is America’s first proper Beastie Girl. The bootylicious Can’t Take Me Home (2000) was her Licensed to Ill, a gleefully race-traitorous debut that garnered props from fans on both sides of the color line.

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Back in 2001, Bubba Sparxxx played Eminem to Timbaland’s Dr.Dre. But instead of riding the pale wave to success, he found that a short white man could cast a long shadow. His forceful debut, Dark Days, Bright Nights, might have been lauded in leaner times; instead, it became a footnote to Marshall Mathers’ massiveness.

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Mike Skinner, a.k.a. the Streets, could be the most gifted rapper London has ever produced, except that he doesn't really rap--he pontificates, spins spoken-word yarns, and kicks running commentary. Hip-hop--and Britain's equally bling-fixated 2-step-garage scene--has shaped Skinner's sound, but he's too earnest to reproduce their bluster.

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Old enough to know better but young enough not to care, England's Ms. Dynamite sells a throwback idea on her sprightly debut album: message-driven soul music. Although hip-hop still breaks out the soapbox on occasion, mainstream R&B singers haven't paid much attention to affairs outside the bedroom since the funk era. Dynamite started out in the U.K.