Northern State

They may hail from the suburbs of New York City, but the members of Long Island white-girl rap trio Northern State are no clueless Prada-wearing princesses: Julie Potash (a.k.a Hesta Prynn), Correne Spero (Guinea Love), and Robyn Goodmark (DJ Sprout) think very deeply about bombing Baghdad, police brutality, and a woman's right to choose. Like a certain white-male rap trio before them, they also like a smart, silly reference and sports.

Hip Hop You Haven't Heard, the critically acclaimed 2001 EP, veered from strip-mall tease to flaunting college degrees, with educated rapper Hesta Prynn rhyming "Chekhov wrote The Seagull" with "Snoopy is a beagle" on "A Thousand Words." Three of the four tracks were rereleased on 2001's Dying in Stereo, which found the posse theorizing in full effect. "Vicious Cycle" perhaps exemplifies their liberal linguistics best, with Prynn rapping, "Open your minds and rewrite your texts, cuz there's a lot you can learn from the opposite sex."

All City, their major-label debut, features a much pricier sound, courtesy of Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs and the Roots' ?uestlove, among others. Their flows still evoke the Beastie Boys circa 1988, but tracks such as "Girl for All Seasons," "Last Night," and "Think Twice" are packed with hooky funk, group-chant choruses, and New Yawk toughness, and the group's playfulness and unpretentious intelligence evoke hip-hop's golden age without a hint of retro self-consciousness. (CARLA SPARTOS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide