But that doesn't stop a lot of twentysomething hot flashes from making a career out of the the latest youth fad--and the dopest subgenre since punk. Checking in with albums number three are the clipped, quick Eric B. & Rakim (Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em, on MCA) and the poppish girl group Salt-n-Pepa (Blacks' Magic, on Next Plateau). The former relies too predictably on the James Brown beats that got the duo their major-label advance; the latter augments spunky girl talk with the Afrocentric seriousness now demanded by rap fans of all races. Salt-n-Pepa deserve better (check Negro Wit' an Ego, Independent, Let's Talk About Sex), but the hard fact is that neither album has the commercial legs of a career move. So let's hope neither act goes into hiding.

"Don't call it a comeback! I been here for years!" shouts L.L. Cool J on the title track of his fourth album, Mama Said Knock You Out (Def Jam). Upset because 1989's Walking with a Panther never cracked double platinum, he's enlisted demon sampler-mixmaster Melle Mel in what's sure to stand (Run-D.M.C., this means you) as the most powerful and unreconstructed rap of 1990. Cool J isn't down with moralizing. He sticks his car stereo in your ear and drinks a 40 while he's at it; he makes the father of one of the women he's fucking sound exactly like Mike Tyson; he lets KRS-One stop the violence. I don't know whether he'll return to his multiplatinum ways. But this is one rap dinosaur who deserves major respect.

Playboy, Aug. 1990

July 1990

Sept. 1990