Pop Music Reviews : Brooklyn Rappers 3rd Bass Thrown Out by LL Cool J

With the Black Rock Coalition going strong and a hip-hop show the most popular program on MTV, 3rd Bass, a new Brooklyn rap group with an album in the Top 10 of Billboard’s black music chart, uses its whiteness the same way Heavy D uses his girth: as a cute gimmick.

“Do you see any white boys on stage?” they asked at a Palace showcase on Tuesday sponsored by hip-hop radio station KDAY. Well, yes, one who shuffles like Grant Schumaker on “The Garry Shandling Show,” another who gesticulates with a cane like Art Carney in “Harry and Tonto.” 3rd Bass thanked “all the brothers and sisters . . . who can see the soul under the skin.”

They made hideously offensive AIDS cracks, just like Ice-T. They tentatively bellowed their hits into a microphone like rappers on their first tour, which they are. And--big mistake--they brought out LL Cool J for their last couple of numbers--the effect of which was kind of like Michael Jordan stepping into a schoolyard basketball game or Anita Baker sitting in at a piano bar. With his clear tenor, polysyllables and astounding machine-gun articulation, LL cut through the murky, bottom-heavy mix. “I juice the party like jumper cables,” he rapped, and he did: The crowd, galvanized, seemed to wake up for the first time that night. (De La Soul and Eazy-E also appeared on stage.) LL has never been this good; 3rd Bass was all but forgotten.