POP MUSIC REVIEW : Dig This: Urban and Urbane Rap : Digable Planets’ Coach House show offers a look at what may be the Talking Heads of rap.

The best music entertains and inspires.

So are the Digable Planets really Cool Like Dat?

Absolutely.

In its Southern California debut on Tuesday at the Coach House, the New York trio exhibited the kind of strong appeal to intellect and a winning flair for experimentation that could establish it as the Talking Heads of rap.

“It’s good to be here,” the Planets declare in the opening track of their debut album--and it’s a sentiment that has been widely embraced by the pop/hip-hop world. Rarely has a new group been accepted as quickly and as enthusiastically as this two-man, one-woman outfit.

Even before their exquisite “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” single began climbing the nation’s pop charts, the Planets were being hailed as this year’s Arrested Development.

Unlike Development and its rural, folk-funk image and sound, however, the Planets come across as urban and hip. What other group finds room in its lyrics for references to Miles Davis and Cleopatra Jones?

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The music is filled with lots of jazz undercurrents (samples on the album range from Art Blakey to Sonny Rollins) and there is a playful but purposeful sub-theme involving--of all things--a salute to the insect kingdom. The trio even goes on stage with insect names: Leader Ismael Butler is Butterfly, Craig Irving is Doodlebug and Ann Vieira is Ladybug.

It’s all part of an idealized notion of cooperation in the insect world--a sense of unity that the group believes holds a key to greater progress and self-sufficiency for the African-American community in the United States. This message isn’t dissimilar to that of such aggressive rap forces as Public Enemy, but its musical shading is almost the polar opposite.

While the cerebral wordplay works nicely on the Planets’ “Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)” album, the relaxed pace of the music seems at times best suited for the laid-back aura of beat-era coffeehouses. This could have caused problems for the Planets on the more energetic pop club or theater circuit.

But the Planets seemed in command from the opening number Tuesday. Backed aggressively by an upright bassist, a drummer, two horn players and a turntable deejay, the trio clearly wanted the evening to be a house party, not an ethereal workshop. And, thankfully, they didn’t push the insect bit to its extreme. (The worst nightmare: the trio dressed in insect costumes or imitating insect movements on stage.)

Like Speech of Arrested Development, Butterfly is a confident, charismatic frontman who, in keeping with the unity theme of the music, tends to share the stage generously with his able rapping partners and the musicians.

The only time he took control was during “La Femme Fetal,” a stinging assault on the militancy of some members of the anti-abortion movement. In response to those who would deny abortions, he snapped: Land of the free / But not me.

There is room for improvement. The group, which was playing the Palace on Wednesday, wastes time on audience participation cliches, and the show’s momentum would benefit from even more varied musical color.

But the basic elements are in place--and all the evidence you needed came at the end of the hourlong set when the Planets had the capacity crowd dancing in the narrow rows between the tables to the seductive “Rebirth of Slick.”

Cool indeed.