Dead Serious (1992)

When MCs Skoob and Krazy Drayz entered a rap battle last year at Virginia State University, they lost the $100 grand prize but won the admiration of guest judges Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith, better known as gold-selling rappers EPMD. These self-styled hip-hop businessmen helped Skoob and Drayz land a recording contract as DAS EFX. On their debut album, Dead Serious, they display a fondness for verbal puzzles and hardcore roughness. Armed with an exhaustive catalog of pop-culture references (from commercial jingles to nursery rhymes, Madonna, and Sinéad O'Connor), they also use lots of double-time gibberish (''drippety-drop,'' ''biggety-bum'') and spin this nonsense into hardcore tracks that resemble the loopy, pumping, stripped- down sound of their mentors. But this technique quickly loses its charm when DAS EFX issues warnings to fast women and seems to endorse gay-bashing. At the very least, these attitudes are tired. Despite the gritty funk beats here, the novelty and mindless pleasure of Dead Serious swiftly wane. B-