Nas' still has attitude on new CD

Don't be fooled by "Queens Get The Money," the bracing opener of Nas' now-untitled ninth solo album: It sounds like nothing else on the CD.

The Jay Electronica-produced cut -- built on a few simple piano twinkles and no drum track -- is by far the most left-of-center music the veteran Queens rapper has ever rhymed over. Calling himself "Nasty Nas-daq" and dropping oblique references to boxing greats and Huey Newton, Nas rhymes lines such as: "Bring back Arsenio/ hip-hop was aborted/ so Nas breathes life back into the embryo."

The song's a bold step for Nas, an MC continually caught between two mindsets -- his artistic ambition and commercial obligation. Until a few months before this CD's release, he dared to title the disc after the N-word. Despite initial backing from Def Jam honcho Antonio "L.A." Reid, public outcry (The NAACP, Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton all rallied against the title) forced him to change the album's name.

But Nas's attitude hasn't dulled. Though "Untitled" is a compelling yet uneven effort, he proves he's still one of the hip-hop's most eloquent and bitingly honest writers. On the booming first single "Hero," he addresses the title change: "Still in musical prison, in jail for the flow/ Try telling Bob Dylan, Bruce, or Billy Joel/ They can't sing what's in their soul/ So 'Untitled' it is."

As much as Nas decries being censored, he's no fool either. Perhaps that's why Nas has hedged his bets, couching some of his fired-up rhymes in radio-ready beats. The aforementioned anthem "Hero" is wedged between two other big productions with loud, full-bodied tracks and monster hooks. A nod to hustlers and gangstas, the Cool and Dre-helmed "Make the World Go Round" features Chris Brown, the Game and huge synths, while the grating soul-pop hook on "America" gives the track a solemn edge. Despite the overwrought beats, Nas offers lyrical gems. On the former, a cocky Nas spits: "I'm Alex Pushkin/ The black poetry-writing Russian."

That epic hip-hop trifecta precedes the album's polemical core. "Sly Fox," a guitar-crunching head-banger produced by Dead Prez's Stic.Man, rails largely against Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. Then there's the bluesy, revolutionary fantasy "Testify," before the album climaxes with the string-laden N-word song, on which Nas sounds hopeful: "Man, this history don't acknowledge us/ We were scholars way before colleges."

Given more judicious editing, that song should've been the album's impactful closing salvo. Instead the disc continues, and the energy dips. Songs built on dubious metaphors -- "Fried Chicken" and "Project Roach" -- waste a sturdy Mark Ronson track and feature an underwhelming cameo by The Last Poets, respectively. And the mediocre "Black President" juxtaposes a Tupac Shakur vocal sample with Nas's Barack Obama endorsement ("I'm thinking I can trust this brother").

At his best, Nas can be an insightful street disciple, cocky veteran MC, and rap's political and cultural conscience. But with better album sequencing and less filler, "Untitled" could have been the commercial and ideological statement he was shooting for.

CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: On the guitar-crunching "Sly Fox," Nas sounds like a lost member of lefty rap group Dead Prez (that's a good thing): "Watch what you watchin'/ Fox keeps feeding us toxins/ Stop sleeping/ Start thinking outside of the box and/ Unplug from the Matrix doctrine."