Opposites Rap: 2nd II None, Cypress Hill Display Diversity

It’s become commonplace to suggest that rap has become as diverse as rock ‘n’ roll used to be. What may be news is that gangsta rap, the danceable, street-rooted, cussing-filled hip-hop associated with South-Central L.A. street corners, has become nearly as diverse itself.

On Friday at the Country Club, 2nd II None and Cypress Hill explored the opposite ends of the spectrum.

The current LP from top-billed Cypress Hill, a bilingual rap group based in South Gate, works because the funny, fairy-tale-type rhymes about cops and hangin’ out and fat joints of weed are perfect party-record stuff.

At the Country Club, though, Cypress Hill put on the sort of show you might expect from rappers who are the current cover boys for High Times magazine. They showed up late and left after a very few songs, and they bellowed their hits like bull hippos.

Taken a certain way, the set may have been the hip-hop equivalent of the Stooges or the Dwarves rather than sheer indifference on the part of the group.

In contrast, the set by Compton’s 2nd II None was crisp, clean and briskly paced, loud without being distorted, an impeccable, compulsively danceable pop-rap revue.

Rappers Dee and KK bounced across the stage like fleas on a hot griddle, rapped clearly and precisely, and led the audience in dozens of chants, few of them printable.

When DJ Quik, their friend and sometime producer, hit the stage halfway through the show, the girls in the audience screamed as if the Beatles themselves had popped onto the stage.