Rappers know that success is not the same thing as security. In a genre in which sounding like old news is fatal, even the top guns feel pressure to change. Still, it's quite a shock hearing Hammer and Tone Loc, the proud possessors of rap's biggest-selling album and single, respectively, making substantial efforts to avoid repeating the formulas of their oft-reviled and still-unrivaled smashes.

Hammer (he's dropped the M.C.) is on a mission made explicit in the title of Too Legit to Quit. Though "U Can't Touch This" was last year's most unavoidable catch phrase and Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em sold 10 million copies, Hammer was primarily a punch line within the hip-hop community. His unabashed, hook-line-and-sinker sampling of familiar pop songs and his unexceptional rhyming skills caused many to see him as embodying rap's most unflattering stereotypes. Not satisfied with his achievements as a dancer and showman, Hammer is now shooting for acceptance as a musical innovator, and the big move was recording Too Legit with live instruments and eliminating samples. Too Legit also represents a considerable broadening of Hammer's range, from several slower, R&B-style tracks to "Do Not Pass Me By," which features a gospel choir. The lyrics alternate dance-party chants with social commentary, though the content seldom goes any deeper than the positive thinking ("Brothers Hang On," "Find Yourself a Friend") of the titles.

Unfortunately, good intentions don't guarantee good songs. Everyone assumes that it was the irresistible sampled hooks that made Don't Hurt 'Em so huge, but its true legacy may prove to be the adage "If you repeat a song's title enough times, you can bully your way to a hit." By my count, the title track and "This Is the Way We Roll" are tied for the lead on this album, each offering its slogan fifty-six times.

Even more problematic is Too Legit's unendurable length. Of the cassette's seventeen tracks (thirteen on CD), only two clock in under four minutes, and most are over five. Though Hammer does experiment with some new sounds and deliveries – like the quiet, textured "Street Soldiers," clearly modeled on Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" – and a few of the tracks are pleasant dance fare, ultimately nothing on the album can sustain that kind of duration.

Tone Loc's transformation on Cool Hand Loc, on the other hand, is both more subtle and more striking. Rather than recreate the rock-guitar samples and comic anecdotes of his hits "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina," from Loc-ed After Dark, Loc turns to the smoother styles of Seventies soul. Pianos, organs and saxes replace the Van Halen and Free licks, and when a wah-wah guitar is added on "Joke but Don't Play," the track crunches like the theme from a lost blaxploitation movie.

Cool Hand Loc includes several love songs, which are rescued from sappiness by Loc's seductive, slow-rolling delivery; these are balanced by a couple of Ice-T-style gangsta tales. Loc's smoky, rumbling timbre has only gotten more gravelly in the two years since Loc-ed After Dark (presumably the result of his fondness for the herb celebrated on Dark's surreally mellow "Cheeba Cheeba" and again on this album's more pedestrian "Mean Green").

The second half of Cool Hand Loc is considerably less satisfying than the first, maintaining Loc's amiable tone but offering nothing as memorable as the Toots and the Maytals piano sample (from "Funky Kingston") on the laid-back leadoff "Funky Westside." Only on "Fatal Attraction" (significantly, the one cut Loc had no hand in writing) does Cool Hand Loc sink shamelessly to copying the "Wild Thing" formula. Still, on this album, Tone Loc has managed to mature more effectively than Hammer has on Too Legit to Quit. Without apologizing for his poppiness or struggling too hard for credibility, Loc wears better because he's only as legit as he wants to be. (RS 618)

ALAN LIGHT