Like Naughty By Nature, West Coast underground fixture Dilated Peoples specializes in fist-pumping, adrenaline-charged anthems equally suited for enlivening mix-tapes, commercials, and stadiums. Not as old-school as Jurassic 5 or as ambitious as Blackalicious, Dilated Peoples creates a boyish, athletic brand of True School hip-hop that emphasizes aggression and force over humor and quirkiness, which, not surprisingly, can get a little dull. But while Dilated Peoples doesn't throw many curveballs, when its fastball is working, it doesn't need them.
The first five songs on Neighborhood Watch, the L.A. group's much-anticipated new album, stick closely to Dilated Peoples' default strategy of hard, spare beats and straightforward rhymes on such familiar subjects as the untrustworthiness of cops—an evergreen hip-hop topic if there ever was one. The album begins to kick in with "Poisonous," which explores equally familiar material: the untrustworthiness of materialistic women. But the song transcends mere misogyny, both in its attempt to understand the circumstances that create greed and cynicism in women, and in a wonderfully woozy chorus from the always-welcome Devin The Dude, who sounds like a cartoon character after a nervous breakdown.
Numerous peaks follow, including "Reach Us," with its haunting two-word chorus, the anthemic "Love And War," and "Big Business," where the group name-checks J. Edgar Hoover and showcases its political savvy with trenchant commentary on the way patriotism has been co-opted by the right following Sept. 11. Dilated Peoples hooks up with hip-hop's hottest producer on the Kanye West-assisted "This Way," a gospel-tinged banger in the "Get By" mold, wherein Evidence waxes noble and progressive, while West, perhaps tired of being conscious following The College Dropout, surveys his stable of girlfriends. Ending the album on a high note, "DJ Babu In Deep Concentration" finds the group's excellent DJ paying tribute to another A-list producer, DJ Premier. Babu's turntable wizardry keeps the momentum going strong, tipping this late bloomer of an album firmly into the win column.