Dilated Peoples

20/20

(Capitol)



“Conscious” rappers can never have too many roof parties, nor do they ever tire of strolling down the block on a cloudy day. Just watch music videos by Black Star, Talib Kweli, or Nas—when he wanted his underground credibility back. Dilated Peoples have held to the b-boy aesthetic in the past, but watch the fancy video for their new single, “Back Again,” carefully. Those props did not pay for themselves.

There is money in the underground, and “20/20,” the latest from Rakaa, Evidence, and DJ Babu, is a product of a group that wants (and has) the money it knows it should push away.

Evidence still raps about wack MCs on the radio (“The game’s fucked a thousand sound-alikes it’s sad”), and he still raps about how he shuns a mainstream sound (“I don’t fuck with that industry flow”), but his resistance to the trappings of mass appeal has waned. Turns out that he does indeed “fuck with that industry dough.”

Political consciousness, previously a lyrical mainstay for the Peoples, makes only a few appearances on the record, and none of it brings along any weight. “You Can’t Hide, You Can’t Run”— which features a beat that Kanye already did for “The Black Album”—finds Rakaa taking a shot at Ronald Reagan. A swipe at a dead guy seems dated, and an inexplicable India.Arie reference doesn’t help anything either.

Evidence just sounds tired rapping “’Click it or ticket’ / They forcing us to stay strapped.” The double meaning of “strapped” aside, you can rage against any machine you please and you choose the seatbelt law?

DJ Babu saves the day occasionally. “Back Again” is a great single with chipmunked out vocal samples and an insistent guitar loop. “Alarm Clock Music” brings the close-quarters paranoia that’s been floating around the West Coast for years, and “20/20” is stuffed, Bomb Squad-style, to the breaking point. The MCs respond well to Babu’s better beats, shifting the vocal delivery from the throat to the gut.

It’s not a bad record. I hope people don’t need to hear a 50 Cent guest verse or Nate Dogg hook on “Back Again” before they start calling into radio stations for it. But even the most generous fans can no longer consider this underground rap. Evidence talked about reestablishing “our sound, our identity” with “20/20,” but where Dilated Peoples should be confident, they just sound uncomfortable.