The Discs of Summer : SUMMER ALBUM ROUNDUP : *** ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, “Zingalamaduni”; <i> Chrysalis</i>

Re-creating the debut album’s mixture of Afrocentric celebration, topical homilies, anti-gangsta disses and personal, spiritual lamentations, “Zingalamaduni”--that’s Swahili for “beehive culture”--lives up to its name in giving good, communal buzz.

Community leader Speech sometimes lives a little too well up to his name too. Early on, preachments take priority over personal asides, as Speech catalogues social concerns to the point that his well-meant raps start to sound like grocery lists of urban woes and power-to-the-people slogans.

Eventually he does get more intimate and--inevitably--more interesting. “Ache’n for Acres” makes a case for pride in property ownership. In “Warm Sentiments,” Speech gets on his girlfriend’s case for having an abortion without consulting him. With the closing “Ease My Mind” and “Praisin’ U,” he further retreats from Daisy Age group exhortations to the God-sized-hole of Angst that made “Tennessee” such a classic, if the results here aren’t quite as memorable.

The 15 tracks again effectively combine comparatively light sampling and spare live playing, with emphasis given to Speech’s nasal rap and the troupe’s trademark female wails. No major developments, but the Pan-African pleasures in A.D.’s feel-good hip-hop niche haven’t been at all arrested.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to four (excellent).