Expansion Team 1; Commercial Rap 0

It's often difficult to picture mentioning the words 'West Coast' and 'Lyriscism' in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. However, in recent years, groups such as Jurassic 5 and Blackalicious have begun to disprove the trend. Although these and others have had classic albums, one group alone has held the crown for intelligient music from the thugged-out West Coast. Who?

I'll give you a guess: 'Triple Optics', 'Eardrums Pop', 'Work the Angles'... it's hard to top an album with as many classics as these (2000's 'The Platform'), but Rakaa Iriscience, Evidence and DJ Babu, otherwise known as the Dilated Peoples, are damn well going to try. Enter the Expansion Team.

TRACK lISTING
1. Live On Stage
2. Worst Comes To Worst
3. Clockwork
4. Trade Money
5. Heavy Rotation f/Tha Liks
6. Self Defense
7. Phil Da Agony Interlude
8. Proper Propaganda
9. Dilated Junkies f/J-Rocc/Rhettmatic/Melo-D
10. Panic
11. Pay Attention
12. Night Life
13. War
14. Hard Hitters f/Black Thought
15. Defari Interlude
16. Expansion Team Theme

The album kicks off with the brilliant Alchemist-produced 'Live On Stage'. Over funky horns and cheers, Ev and Rakaa let you know just who's back, while Babs drops the cuts in the background. Is it the album's best track? No, but it comes damn close.

Following this is something you've (hopefully) heard already, the knockout single 'Worst Comes to Worst'. The track uses strings and cuts to great effect, and Guru drops in for a quick namedrop as Dilated MC about loyalty, friendship and knowing who to trust. It's a magnificent track, and one that will become a classic.

However, Dilated have always been able to maintain the energy on their albums consistently, and 'Expansion Team' is no exception. 'Clockwork' has DJ Premier using a driving beat with grinding bass while DP drop some sorching lines:

We got tension and suspense, theme and variation/
train robbery, panic, description of equasion/
I'm after the gold, and after that the platinum/
You want but you don't have, so far neither one's happened/

Associates Tha Liks jump in for a battle-rap tag team that works wonderfully, as a dark combo of keyboard and flute provides the backdrop on 'Heavy Rotation'. The undisputed best tracks on the album however are the back to back 'Proper Propaganda' and the DJ track 'Dilated Junkies'. Rakaa owns the former, and over sorching horns, drops one of the best verses I've heard in a long time, which deals with the media, politics and propaganda, and highlights the fact that, as talented at making party raps as they may be, Dilated can still be as socially concious as the best of them:

The pen is mightier than the sword/
'Cos the pen gives the word sending swords to war/
They twisted it when he pulled a Mao Tse-Tung/
And said political power comes from the barrel of a gun/...

Then on the latter, Babu's cronies Rhettmatic, Melo-D and J.Rocc, a.k.a the Beat Junkies, pull weight for the sparsely-backed DJ showcase. Coming straight out of LPs like 'Classic Material Vol. 1', the Junkies destroy the decks in what turns out to be a true gem of a track. In a word? Genius.

The album does slow down a little to much after the adrenaline-fueled 'Panic'. The chilled, piano-backed 'Pay Attention' just doesn't fit in, and Ev's solo 'Nightlife', while still proficient, doesn't hold water quite as well as Rakaa's monumental 'Proper Propaganda'. Closing off the album on the surprisingly weak 'Expansion Team Theme' doesn't help either.

But in the end, it isn't important. Dilated have such a unique chemistry that the whole album comes off as slick, proffessional and a hell of a lot of fun to listen to. Evidence (the only white kid better than Eminem!) has a gravelly voice that is a perfect foil for Rakaa's crisp flow, and the two balance Babu's stylish production (he is surely one of the greatest DJs ever) with some of the slickest one liners ever ("After two L's, I'm cool like James Todd Smith") although that said, sometimes they don't dig as deep as they should.

I could knock off a star for the above reason, but that would be to miss the point. 'Expansion Team' is a worthy follow up to a classic debut, and is one album that should be listened to by every hip-hop fan. Fantastic.