1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

With their third official album, dead prez invoke the current financial meltdown and seize the depressed zeitgeist.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

With will.i.am and Fergie now White House VIPs, the Peas hone their post-millennial party anthems to an even more piquantly peppy sheen. On the single "I Gotta Feeling," you can almost hear the corporate scrilla changing hands in time to the indelible hook.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Los Angeles' Cypress Hill, with their G'd-up-stoner-dude-meets-Beelzebub aesthetic, always represented an exceptional sonic mélange. And on his solo debut, Cypress frontman B-Real exemplifies his group's madcap versatility. He trades vigorous barbs with Damian Marley ("Fire") and spits spirited Spanglish over buoyant guitar ("1 Life").

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Back in 1991, N.Y.OIL (then known as Kool Kim of the U.M.C.s) dressed like a color-blind Breakin' extra and rapped with clever ebullience about "blue cheese." Seventeen years later, he's resurfaced as an angry elder statesman with a blunt hard-truths message that (mostly) succeeds where it might easily annoy.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

After emerging six years ago as the South's quintessential regular joes with the single "Awnaw," and five years after their equally down-home but less commercially successful second album, Nappy Roots return, trying to reconcile hard times with their desire for a more garish lifestyle.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Login or Register to rate this item.

Since his classic underground debut album, 2001's The Best Part, former Brooklyn schoolteacher J-Live has enjoyed cultlike status as the quintessential no-frills indie MC -- literate but genially pointed.