played out in clubs and on street corners, where cash, love and life are just inches from whirling down the drain. The moral of the story is never far - MCs Cee-Lo, Khujo, T-Mo and Big Gipp take turns laying down bread-crumb trails to righteousness - though ideas like, "The world would be a better place to live if there were less queers," on "All A's," make you wonder who appointed them Fairy Godmother. The real lesson here is the music: fifty-two burning-hot minutes of molasses-thick grooves which prove yet again that, between Goodie Mob and their producers at LaFace, there's no place like the South to throw a party. (RS 827)

NATASHA STOVALL