Whodini's raps are tense, crowded with words, set to scary-movie music. The most distinguished track on Escape, the trio's new album, is "Friends," a song that starts sappy and ends wise. "We like to be with some because they're funny/Others come around when they need some money," goes the beginning of the rap – no great insights about friendship there. But it winds up being a discourse on the course of most romances, things happening too fast until somebody admits, "Besides making love, we had nothing in common." The instrumental break features tinkling keyboard notes that ping on the surface of the song like raindrops. There's another hit in "Freaks Come Out at Night," a nice companion to Was (Not Was)'s "Out Come the Freaks," both songs about the oddsters who inhabit the night. "You could know someone all their life/And might not know they're a freak unless you see 'em at night," vocalist Jalil raps over a dark synthesizer riff that gives the song an appropriate creepiness.

In "Escape (I Need a Break)," Whodini shows a sense of humor. Tired of a girlfriend, who's been told in another song to get loose or get lost, they're hinting here that she move along: "She wears diamonds, furs, and now she wants kids/But what she really needs is somewhere else to live." Like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message," this rap takes inventory of urban ills, but the music's too obvious, like a TV-drama soundtrack meant to set a frenetic pace or a worrisome mood. The two instrumentals included aren't very interesting, either. Still, the first two cuts on each side, with music as sharp and taut as the rapping, are worth the price you pay. (RS 444)

DEBBY BULL