The deep south could very well produce the next great wave of hip-hop. Why? Because artists like OutKast, Wildliffe Society and Goodie Mob are grounded in two things sorely lacking in rap nowadays: vision and sincerity. Still Standing, Goodie Mob's follow-up to their acclaimed 1995 debut, Soul Food, is an ingenious concept album that digs its leathery hands into the guts of the Atlanta area and comes out with an uncompromising depiction of the post-civil-rights South.

It is this South that Atlanta's Goodie Mob queried listeners about on Soul Food: "What y'all fools know about the dirty Scuth?" This is a South that, in spite of its laid-back ways, can be just as gritty and just as harsh as life in a Northern ghetto. Goodie Mob's Still Standing reintroduces this Dixie as part of its one big theme: that black America needs to confront all of its demons before it is too late. Whether they're rhyming about the murder of Ennis Cosby, litter in the ghetto or rampant materialism, Goodie Mob aim – as a Baptist preacher would say – to disturb those who are a I'il too comfortable.

Still Standing nearly achieves this goal, despite its inconsistencies. The album was executive-produced by Soul Food masterminds Organized Noize, but not every track bears their soulful signature, and some of Standing has a generic sound. Still, there are plenty of gems. "Fly Away" blends a pulsating bass line with a gospel sensibility while it urges player-hating outsiders, "If you don't like what I say, fly away, fly away/If you don't like where I stay, fly away." Encased in a wall of refrosoul, "The Experience" is a deft nod to the Last Poets – Caelo, the group's minister, riffs on the myths and meanings of the n word.

Like Curtis Mayfield before them, Goodie Mob know no lyrical boundaries: Everything is game, from social commentary to love (peep the folksy "Beautiful Skin," an ode to black womanhood). The hope is that on their next go 'round, Goodie Mob will push the envelope lyrically and musically in the way Public Enemy did a decade ago. In the meantime, though, if you want to hear real hip-hop, go South, partner, go South. (RS 786)

KEVIN POWELL