TEKI LATEX *
Party La Plaisir EMI
Teki Latex, known to some as an MC in Franco-hip-hop kings TTC, deserves one star for hiring Feistian producers Gonzales and Renaud Letang to navigate his foray into commercial pop music. Decked out in the most garish neon colours imaginable — as seen in the video for “Les matins de Paris” — the tone-deaf Teki has zero personality as a pop singer on titles such as “Disco dance with you” and “J’aime pas la pop music.” He enlists Feist to hide under her Peaches-sidekick alias Bitch Lap Lap, rapping in French and chanting: “The shit is the ish / the ish is the shit.” Were it not for that stunt casting, it’s highly unlikely this would ever have been exported outside of France. MB

MARVEL ***
No Streets… Just The World Mumbles
Toronto MC Marvel isn’t aiming for the clubs with his debut release as much as aiming for the clouds, throwing his ironclad, serious flow over a selection of dreamy, mellow beats. It’s impressive that he maintains a consistent atmosphere throughout the album, with mid-tempo, pensive songs making up the bulk of the 14 tracks. Although certain songs have been in circulation since the mid-’90s, they don’t take away from the album’s overall fresh sound. The only word of caution would be that the album’s unobtrusive air can slide into a superficially repetitive sound, but Marvel’s MCing skills and the solid production from 12bit, Kardinal Offishall and others make this worth checking out. NICK FLANAGAN

SHAGGY ***
Intoxication Big Yard/VP
One of the longer-lived pop mainstays, Shaggy hath returned, and this time he comes bearing a no-nonsense demeanour. In fact, at first listen to the severely originally titled Intoxication, it’s hard to pick out the LP’s equivalent of “It Wasn’t Me,” or even “That Girl.” Perhaps the tradeoff of not having an annoyingly catchy smash is the general decency of Shaggy’s work this go-round, as he drops impactful, educational wordbombs such as “even as a likkie youth me constantly horny” or “politics polytricks equal econometricks.” This is a fine album of randy, pleasant pop-reggae and is a perfect addition to any young professional’s Friday night stereo rotation. NF

NOMADIC MASSIVE ***
Nomad’s Land PTR
This Montreal-based, multicultural hip-hop crew could get festival gigs worldwide based on their CV alone — they take on socially conscious subjects in English, French, Spanish, Creole and Arabic. A classic New York production sensibility keeps the flow coherent from track to track. The overall sound is perhaps too cautious, although when the dense and shifting multilingual wordplay kicks in, the steady beats keep the proceedings on an even keel. Repeated listening reveals touches of acoustic guitar and creative looping to spice up the grooves. The best track, the skittering, percussion-laden “Neg Chante” hints at more ambitious beatscapes to come.  This is a fine first effort, but this crew is poised to deliver something special someday as they continue to work on the originality of their production.
 DAVID DACKS

SAUL WILLIAMS *****
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! FADER
Where Ziggy Stardust was the leper messiah struck down by rock’s excess, our post-In Rainbows online free-or-$5 payment model has Williams’ Niggy taking the record industry to task for cashing in. The former slam poet uses his ghetto gothic shotta alter-ego to dismantle the concept album’s rockist conceits for n-word race politicking and a truly cohesive melding of rock, hip-hop and electronica elements. NIN’s Trent Reznor provides Fragile–style industrial production with transfusions of Public Enemy sampling (“Tr(n)igger”), U2 coverage (“Sunday Bloody Sunday”) and grime-y ghetto-tech (“Black History Month”). Williams’ conceptual lyricism finally lets loose, veering from cool crooning to blunt social critique: “Don’t U call him by his name / White people call him ‘Curtis’ / When I say Niggy U say nothin’. / Niggy.” This is nothing less than groundbreaking. RM

FREEWAY ***
Free at Last  Roc-A-Fella/Universal
After taking a half-decade hiatus to work on his beard, Freeway finally delivers his second album, Free at Last. (Get it? His name is Free-way!) This time around, the cacophonous Philly MC probably won’t move Jay-Z numbers —?after all, he still looks like a black Grizzly Adams and sounds like a cracked-out Muppet — but Freeway seems comfortable with his status as the poor man’s Beanie Sigel (or the rich man’s Memphis Bleek). While he swings for a hit on the stomping “Roc-A-Fella Billionaires,” enlisting Jay to file a rhyming tax return (“Just copped me of all things / A professional ball team”), Free dedicates the rest of the record to modestly sincere songs, not marketable singles. This may be an unavoidable result of former collaborator Just Blaze calling in filthy rich. Regardless, Freeway’s approach works like a diamond-studded Roc-A-Fella charm. James Simons

DJ VADIM **
The Soundcatcher Extras BBE
In days of yore, all you needed was a working knowledge of jive to understand hip-hop lyrics. But in this globalized marketplace, you never know when a verse of Swahili or Latvian will fly at you. Take The Soundcatcher Extras, Ninja Tune producer/Russian guy DJ Vadim’s latest international collection of live tracks and remixes. The record contrasts English raps (Rawkus rapper Silent Knight’s strong “Raise Your Glass”) with skittering French flows (Big Red’s “Kill Kill Kill (Waxos Remix)”); futuristic beats with old-school verses (Zion’s “Got to Rock”); and spacey jams (“SD1”) with rigid electro beats (“Kill Kill Kill [Deface Groove Remix]”). In doing so, Soundcatcher delivers more strong tracks (reggae artist Demolition Man’s bouncy “Boom Somting”) than weak ones  (three versions of “Kill Kill Kill” is overkill, overkill, overkill). Unfortunately, it also sacrifices cohesiveness for variety. JS  

ANDRE 3000 **
Whole Foods Think Differently Music
It’s not clear how Think Differently expect to get away with repackaging an unmixed and likely unauthorized collection of Andre 3000’s guest verses and a few OutKast tracks. (“Spottieottiedogalicious” isn’t going to fly under Universal’s lawyers’ radar just because it’s misspelled.) But for the blissfully or wilfully ignorant consumer, the benefits of having several of Dre’s Dorothy Parker–worthy quips in one place (“your white tee, well to me, looks like a nightgown” is untouchable) are outweighed by the drawbacks, namely the choppy sequencing, Dre’s tiresome forays into singing (“Pink and Blue”) and the fact that fans have most of these tracks already. DM

WELL DEEP: TEN YEARS OF BIG DADA RECORDINGS ***
Big Dada
Time hasn’t been kind to underground rappers; instead of being post-Native Tongues boho princes-in-exile waiting for the new regime to crumble, they’ve been relegated to a (non) commercial ghetto from which they may never escape. But London boutique label Big Dada’s retrospective proves that life isn’t so bad on the dark side of the moon. Media darlings from Diplo to TTC to Wiley contribute fine tracks (Xxxchange’s break-driven mix of the latter’s “My Mistakes” is a clear winner), but the real story never properly told is how the likes of Roots Manuva never quite broke through. The DVD is less arresting than the CDs, though Infinite Livez’s wacky/nauseating “Adventures of the Lactating Man” video deserves special mention for being the weirdest clip I’ve seen since that vid with those kids with Aphex Twin’s face beating up old people. Props. DM