O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Above the Law Was a Bum Rap for Audience

“Now I got a murder rap” is the boastful refrain of the hit song by rap newcomers Above the Law, but this outlaw-ethos exploitation crew from South Central Los Angeles couldn’t get arrested Saturday night at the Celebrity Theatre on its first prowl across the county line.

With its debut album out only a week--hot-selling as it may be--Above the Law was reaching above its level in trying to headline so soon away from its home turf. In the nuclear physics of rap, it takes a big, rocking crowd for a live concert to reach critical mass. The Celebrity’s all-rookie bill of Above the Law, fellow Angelenos Low Profile, and New York’s Gang Starr played to a 2,500-seat house that was four-fifths empty.

Above the Law’s main man, 187um (in police code, a 187 is a killing), was an energetic-enough performer, but this short, stocky figure didn’t come close to achieving the menace or swagger of the hip-hop Stagger Lee that he purports to be in his raps. As eagerly as Above the Law may claim to be the voice of underclass experience, its artless raps failed to evoke lived experience of any sort. The group drops violent imagery about weapons, murders and beatings as readily as a gossip columnist drops names, but all this supposed invocation of ghetto sound and fury ends up signifying nothing.

Far more interesting rappers such as Public Enemy and Above the Law’s cronies, N.W.A., have made thought-provoking points by using violent images as metaphors, or for sheer shock value.

When Public Enemy’s Chuck D chants “my Uzi weighs a ton,” the machine gun stands for a potentially more powerful weapon: an angry mind and tongue lashing out against a grim social status quo of racial inequality. In 187um’s lyrics, a machine gun may be a metaphor for rapping prowess (although sometimes it’s just a machine gun), but he never works that metaphor into an interesting, socially resonant narrative.

As for N.W.A.’s sociopathic fantasies about gang wars and cop-bashing, at least they shed a fearsome light on what is becoming of the social order in the ghetto. Above the Law borrows some of N.W.A.’s harsh terminology but doesn’t know how to use it to tell a story or to make a point.

N.W.A. turned up to help out on a chaotic but lively tag-team rap workout during Above the Law’s 25-minute show (short for a headliner, even by rap’s wham-bam-outta-here standards). When left to their own devices, the newcomers gave it a good effort without really connecting. 187um ran about and gesticulated a lot but failed to rock the house. It was unclear whether 187um’s foil, a hulking rapper named KM.G, can cut it live, since his voice was almost always bolstered by electronic effects that made his lines sound as if they were being delivered through an echoing bullhorn.

If the album, “Livin’ Like Hustlers,” takes off, it’s quite possible that Above the Law will be able one day to rock a full house at the Celebrity, as many better-established rappers have been able to do. Whether the group will be able by then to deliver substance along with a motivating beat is a matter of some doubt.

Second-billed Low Profile featured a trenchant rapper named W.C. and a flash record scratcher, D.J. Aladdin. W.C. isn’t one to indulge in gangster terminology, and one of his raps, “That’s Y They Do It,” offered sound analysis of ghetto social dysfunction (the rampant drug trade), instead of merely exploiting it for shock value. But after rousing the crowd somewhat for 12 minutes, W.C. gave up and called it a night. The set lasted long enough for Aladdin to establish himself as a wizard at the turntables, with fancy behind-the-back moves and impressive staccato bursts.

Gang Starr’s awful 20-minute opening set left its few beholders inert. Rapper Keithy E’s mealy delivery had all the power and excitement of a student council election speech, with rhetoric to match. Most of his lyrics were muddled pabulum about “positivity.” It proved that high-mindedness without gumption and imagination is even more worthless than pointless gangster-chic raps presented with some verve.