Foul-Mouthed Rapper Pays Homage to Messiah

I guess that part about being foul-mouthed is a redundancy when it comes to rappers, and in this case, the very charming rapper named Nas' was going to title his new album Ni--er, except the record company objected.

Yes, when you have a song dedicated to a presidential candidate, that name probably isn't the best to use.

New York rapper Nas' "Untitled" album, hitting stores Tuesday, features a track called "Black President," about a fresh kind of leader who "provides hope and challenges minds of all races and colors to erase the hate."

The tune, leaked on the Internet, is becoming a favorite for rap-loving Obama supporters.

The Illinois senator is a "new, improved JFK," according to Nas.

The album was originally going to be called "N- - - - -," but was renamed after Nas' Def Jam label kicked up a fuss.

Well, expect Obama to run fast from this guy.

Just get a load of this.

"Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag," Nas tells us in "You Can't Stop Us Now." "Bet she had a n----r with her to help her old a--." Things get even more contradictory, simplistic and confused from there, with Nas undercutting his praise for Barack Obama ("Black President") by defending dog abuser Michael Vick ("You Can't Stop Us Now"), stating the beyond-obvious in "Sly Fox" ("Watch what you watchin'/Fox keeps feedin' us toxins") and somehow shifting from racial conspiracies to UFO cover-ups in "We're Not Alone" ("Evidence remains in debate/Documents of our own Air Force base/Additional terrestrial information/Other planets with life population").

The LA Times review of this dreck is rather harsh

"Untitled" is littered with flaccid attempts at pop crossover, with "Hero" and "We Make the World Go Round" two egregious examples. Not only do the plays for radio riches feel forced, they make Nas' Neiman Marxist radicalism seem glaringly hypocritical, even by rap standards.

As for the album's muddled political core, it's best exemplified on "Farrakhan," where in one breath Nas claims that he's a "revolutionary" while in the next he claims he's the "king of bling, jewels and Bentleys." On "Testify," Nas stridently chides "little suburban white kids" for listening to his music and not being "willing to ride with him in the revolution." It's the sort of outmoded '60s hangover politics that Barack Obama was supposed to have made obsolete, an irony apparently lost on Nas, who dedicates the track "Black President" to the presumptive Democratic nominee.