Album: The Diplomats

Diplomatic Immunity, Roc-a-Fella

It has taken some time, but the events of September 11 have finally started to percolate through into hip hop imagery. Perhaps the delay is the result of uncertainty over what position to adopt – as evidenced here in the confused signals given by The Diplomats, at one point musing unhelpfully upon the dead buried in the remains of the World Trade Center, at another allowing an associate to proclaim himself "a Taliban lyrical martyr". Frankly, it all sounds a trifle exploitative, with ground zero involving the questionable use of September 11 terminology as a hook phrase, then compounding the insult with the even more questionable use of a synth ostinato sample from the Eighties poodle-pomp-rockers Winger.

This is but one of a series of weird musical stratagems employed by this Harlem quartet: there's also a dumb number built around Starship's "We Built this City", and while The Diplomats have good taste in Seventies Philly soul, with liberal borrowings from the likes of The O'Jays, The Moments, Dorothy Moore and The Commodores, they don't yet seem to have figured out how to time-stretch their samples to fit new tempi without shifting pitch; as a result, most of the tracks on Diplomatic Immunity sound as if accompanied by Alvin and The Chipmunks, chirping away absurdly behind tales of crack-dealing, greed and violence. Cam'Ron may be the group leader, but lyricist Juelz Santana is clearly the star, with a quirky articulacy that deserves better treatment. As he acknowledges in the best track "Who I Am", a plea for salvation from criminality, "I need to find another road to follow/ One that's new and strong, not old and hollow". Quite.