POP MUSIC REVIEW : Family Values Hip-Hop From Arrested Development

Move over Sister Souljah--here comes family values hip-hop, a non-sexist, non-racist, nonviolent thing that celebrates the old-fashioned American small-town way of life (minus, of course, the lynchings) in a way that a lifetime of Bill Clinton speeches couldn’t hope to touch.

Arrested Development, the Atlanta rap group whose gentle “Tennessee” was about the most popular non-novelty hip-hop single in recent memory, even has a song that admonishes the nation’s youth to drop the Nintendo to go outside and play in the dirt. What other rappers celebrate their grandmothers?

At its sold-out Palace show Friday, Arrested Development was so groovy you couldn’t stand it sometimes, performing in front of a banner that read “Life Music,” pumping to a live drummer, dismissing gangsta rap as an irrelevant and harmful phenomenon.

In videos, the group’s auteur Speech is the center of attention, rapping, dancing, musing, trying to look as wise and paternal as his 23 years will allow him. On stage, Speech is just one member of the family, just another guy among singers and dancers, and he rapped as often from a rear corner as he did as the frontman, in a clear, melodically inflected tenor. The visual effect was sort of friendly, as if a bunch of college friends had decided to put on a show. If you can conceive of the idea, Arrested Development plays pastoral hip-hop.

If the group sometimes sounded like Speech had listened to too many Miriam Makeba records while growing up, the vibe more than made up for it. And though Arrested Development might try a bit too hard to be the Sly & the Family Stone of hip-hop, give or take a riff or two, they might be on their way.