Expansion Team

(Capitol)

Newsflash for haters of West Coast hip-hop - this album takes your hidebound Eastside superiority to school just like the Diamondbacks did the Yankees in Game 6 of the World Series.

A dubious analogy? Let's roll with it a little bit - just like pro baseball, hip-hop started in the East. The East has got the tradition. And just like the D-backs, the Rockies and other Western expansion teams, commercial West Coast hip-hop has often been clownish and tawdry, full of goons like Nate Dogg and Mac-10, or poor, stoned Snoop Dogg, spelling his name out again and again. Exceptions like Dr. Dre and Ice Cube have kept the West Coast a step above talentless, Dirty South jackasses like Juvenile and Master P (the Montreal Expos of hip-hop?), but the Westside's second-class reputation hasn't been entirely undeserved.

But East Coast arrogance has overlooked an impressive underground movement of extremely gifted DJs and MCs, talents like Oakland's Hieroglyphics or Los Angeles' Jurassic 5. As East Coast all-stars like the Wu-Tang Clan have dissipated their talents, spoiled by success just like the Yankees, scrappy Westside performers have been gathering speed and approaching critical mass, awaiting the moment - just like Game 6 - that shows the nation they're on the map. And Expansion Team, the second full-length album from Los Angeles' Dilated Peoples, may just be it. Dilated has got the beats (DJ Babu is a master behind the turntables), they've got the rhymes (it's been a long, long time since hip-hop saw as agile and erudite a pair of MCs as Dilated's Rakaa and Evidence), they've got great samples, great guest stars, and get this: even a message. The only thing missing is the commercial success, and with singles like "Worst Comes to Worst," one of the year's best, that shouldn't be far behind.