With its 1989 debut, 'The Cactus Album,' 3rd Bass proved that there was room for white MCs who wanted to pay tribute to hip-hop, not rip it off. Derelicts of Dialect proves that The Cactus Album was no fluke. The sound is more street than before and the topics more serious. And it's interesting to note that while 3rd Bass is by and large accepted in the hip-hop world, the group's strongest statements reflect an outsider's perspective. On the satisfyingly bass-heavy "No Master Plan, No Master Race," M.C. Serch intones "I stick to this/Say this while you're grazin'/Original man's a black man/Said by a Caucasian" over the sample of a speech by JFK. "Green Eggs and Swine," perhaps the most innovative anticensorship rap going, mingles lines like "Before Hitler killed the Jews, he started with art" and "Snakes who get the vote will slit your throat" with Edith Bunker's shrill TV voice rendered weirdly melodic.

Derelicts is flattest when attacking hip-hop's commercialism. Vanilla Ice has replaced M.C. Hammer as whipping boy of choice, but no matter – it's the same boring spiel. "Pop Goes the Weasel" dares to condemn Ice's hook thievery to the beat of Peter Gabriel's pop mega-hit "Sledgehammer."

Piling twenty tracks into an album the second time out deprives Derelicts of Dialect of some of the goofball exuberance of The Cactus Album. The listener has to work harder to understand where 3rd Bass is coming from this time around, and that's good. What's frustrating is how self-conscious the group seems about wanting us to make that effort. (RS 610)

KIM FRANCE