On superior album, Nas speaks grief to greedy

Laced with profanity and as filled with the N-word as a New York subway car after school lets out, "Hip Hop Is Dead," the new album by rap hero Nas, won't be mistaken for a Stanley Crouch or Bill Cosby rant on the fall of black popular culture. Yet in his way, Nas is making the same point on this superior album. Greed killed hip-hop, he argues; rappers and their peers have no claim to moral leadership. "You can't blame jazz musicians / or NBA's David Stern with his fashion issues," he raps on the title track.

Of course, hip-hop isn't dead. It has shifted with the times, splintered into subgenres, moved its center of gravity from New York down South, and extended its already huge influence on everything from hard rock to electronica. It has followed the money, indulging record labels and listeners in their taste for exploitation, misogyny, and mindless entertainment, making scads of money in exchange.

The picture is the least pretty in New York, cradle of the genre and home to countless brilliant artists who have fallen into obscurity while the pimps and playas slug it out on commercial radio, sometimes literally. The city's two most dynamic rap families, the 50 Cent sphere of influence and Cam'ron's Dip Set, are among its least enlightened, trading in violence, drugs, homophobia, and the eradication of snitches.

That leaves Jay-Z, whose so-so album this year confirms that he's having more fun presiding over Def Jam recordings and squiring lady love Beyonce about town; and finally Nas, who, in what amounts to a rueful hip-hop inside joke, was once Jay-Z's bitter rival but is now his colleague and, as a Def Jam artist, his employee.

The two men combine on "Black Republican," a meditation on the pitfalls of fame that, drenched in its bombastic arrangement, isn't the album's best cut. The collaborations with Kanye West (the luminous "Still Dreaming") and even, in a guilty-pleasure way, Snoop Dogg (the down and dirty "Play on Playa") are better executed.

Still, Nas has never needed support: His lyrical talent is second to none, at least when judged by old-school benchmarks like flow and creativity. "Carry on Tradition" and "Where Are They Now," a shout-out to rappers of yore, call for a return to those values. With producers ranging from super-hot Scott Storch to, of all people, basketball's Chris Webber, the beats are a bit uneven. But on the whole, Nas, who like Kanye doesn't mind the odd Messiah reference, offers here both a eulogy and a resurrection.