I am L.V.

In today's fast-paced music world, L.V. didn't need 15 minutes to be famous; all it took was six seconds in Coolio's Wagnerian rap hit ''Gangsta's Paradise.'' Shouting out its refrain — ''Keep spendin' most of life/Livin' in a gangsta's paradise'' — L.V. became the song's angry conscience, its Greek ghetto chorus. On his solo debut, I am L.V., he presents himself as a sonorous inner-city preacher: He sings his own, somewhat less compelling version of ''Gangsta's Paradise,'' thanks ''G-O-D'' in one song, and in another admonishes fellow African-Americans to ''put down the gun so we can have some fun.''

What's absent, though, is the heart-pounding shout of his ''Paradise'' cameo. L.V. (''Large Variety'') may sound like a funky man of the cloth, but he also sounds like one fatigued from trying to stop the violence. To confuse matters further, the album shifts halfway through from a few rapturous Curtis Mayfield-style wah-wah symphonies to a string of interchangeable pillow-talk ballads. For an album titled I Am L.V., the man behind it remains a mystery. B-