ALBUM REVIEWS / POP : Solo Bushwick: Engaging Personality, Backup Needed : BUSHWICK BILL, “Phantom of the Rapra” <i> Rap-a-Lot/Noo Trybe</i> * 1/2

Bob Dole might be right: The last thing the world needs is another Bushwick Bill solo album. It’s not the subject matter here that’s bothersome: The sexual braggadocio, violence and depressed condition of people living in the ghetto have always been a part of gangsta rap, and his contention in the opening dialogue that people love sex and violence in opera but hate it in rap is also on point.

The problem is that the former Geto Boy has never been a competent rapper. On that group’s controversial albums, he was good for a verse or two but always had the talented Scarface and Big Mike to back him up. On his own, Bushwick Bill is an engaging personality, but he doesn’t have the rhyme skills to carry him through 12 tracks.

“Phantom” is filled with well-produced, low-rumbling songs that would be hit records for anyone else. On the best tracks--”Ex-Criminal,” “Only God Knows” and “Subliminal Criminal”--he offers visual, energetic rhymes, but with no other lyricist helping him carry out his ideas, Bushwick keeps coming up short.

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