giving the LOX on Money, Power and Respect. It's a hardcore hip-hop album leavened by the party principle, the kind of hip-hop that – instead of obsessing on ruffneck algebra – just feels, as James Brown said, good.

In what has become one of massmarket hip-hop's familiar moves, the LOX – three ambitious rappers from Yonkers, New York, called Jadakiss, Sheek and Styles – present themselves in the thick of things, in the heart of rap central. As they relate in their music or on their album sleeve, Mary J. Blige discovered them, and they eventually recorded "We'll Always Love Big Poppa" (their sweet elegy for the Notorious B.I.G. from last year, which also appears on this album); they've also guested on other big hits, from Puffy, Mase and even the late B.I.G. himself. Now their debut drops them squarely on the scene, which is to say, the radio.

The LOX have paid close attention to HRH Puffy, last year's king of the pop universe, who (although he gets a tad more respect than M.C. Hammer) has always suffered at the hands of samplephobes and hip-hop purists. There's an apparent artistic tension between Combs and this East Coast underground crew – they've said in interviews that they're not your typical Bad Boy act – but that conflict between artists and producer has, in fact, yielded a smart album. The LOX simultaneously worry about and envy the byproducts of success – on "If You Think I'm Jiggy," they brilliantly appropriate the threatened-playboy melody of Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" as they fret about pulling girls who expect "Prada and Escada." And the LOX don't kid themselves that as sales increase, respect often decreases.

But at the same time, Puffy and Puffy-blessed producers keep things pop-y or soulful or dance-minded or whatever the music needs. The LOX thread their concerns through delicious master jams such as "Get This $," in which Puffy and co-producer J-Dub are at large with a bit of the Isley Brothers' "It's Your Thing," and "Can't Stop, Won't Stop," in which Puffy and Co. are equally geniuslike with Spoonie Gee and one of his impossibly elastic party beats. It's whatever-works hip-hop, carried off in the same spirit that Puffy resurrects David Bowie or the Police for their bad bass lines.

That mongrel aesthetic has been seized and fostered with wild creativity by club and electronic artists the world over