LEGAL DRUG MONEY

Lost Boyz: Mr. Cheeks, Freaky Tah, Pretty Lou, DJ Spigg Nice (vocals). Additional personnel: Big Dex (vocals); Mr. Sex (various instruments). Producers include: Mr. Cheeks, Pete Rock, Mr. Sex, Eazy Moe Bee, Big Dex. ). Engineers: Jamie Staub, Mr. Sex, Chris Barnett. The Lost Boyz's energetic music takes hip-hop back to the days when guns and drugs, although present in urban communities, had not yet invaded hip-hop itself. Before the gangsta revolution, hip-hop more often meant a danceable track, a party theme and a positive message. With LEGAL DRUG MONEY, the Lost Boyz attempt to bring these elements back to the mainstream. They're well aware of what's going on in the real world around them, but "being real" isn't their mantra. When violence does intrude, as in "Renee," a love-in-the-ghetto story that ends in murder, it serves as a detail rather than as a theme. And more typical is "Music Makes Me High," whose subject is the delirious effect that hip-hop has on the Lost Boyz. Legal Drug Money covers the same themes that many other hip-hop artists were covering in the mid-'90s. The Lost Boyz rap about getting high, being rich, and other topics typical of the genre. The best track on this album is easily "Renee," a song about a woman who fell in love with an MC but gets killed. Smif-n-Wessun's Dah Shinin and Heltah Skeltah's Nocturnal are similar in style to Legal Drug Money. ~ Dan Gizzi