POP MUSIC REVIEW : Onyx Offers Oppressive Rant on Race Relations

Go to see Onyx--the surly, intimidating New York rap quartet that played the Troubadour on Tuesday--and you just may wind up a member of the Brotherhood of the Bruise.

Fans in front of the stage were engaged in hip-hop’s version of the lost art of slam dancing, furiously banging into one another. You don’t gently groove to Onyx, and if you walk out without a mark or two, then you weren’t really into the show, which consisted of four scowling rappers venting their anger and frustration, mostly about the state of American race relations.

Onyx, which had a million-seller last year with its first album, effectively creates an atmosphere of ferocious anger and alienation. The group drags you into its raps, raging and swearing about the way blacks are treated in this country, which they’ve nicknamed the United States Ghetto. (Onyx’s sensitivity to the problems of blacks didn’t extend to the feelings of women, who got the crude sex-object treatment that’s the disturbing standard in hard-core rap.)

A picture of pent-up fury, they stomped around the stage, constantly on the verge of explosion, ranting and raving to jarring beats that often sounded like shotgun blasts. After a while, all that relentless rage started to become oppressive. They even appeared to be mad at one another--one member shoved another off the stage into the crush of slam dancers, who welcomed another body to batter.